⚙️ Settings
Every adjustable option in PixWit is gathered in the Settings window: tray icon and click behavior, screenshot region and interaction, annotation tool defaults, recording parameters, global hotkeys, file naming and history retention policy, and AI service sources — 7 pages in total. This page explains, page by page, what each option does and what it defaults to; the wording in the actual app is the reference.
Opening Settings
- Entry point: right-click the tray icon → Settings....
- Alternatively, set one of the tray button single-click actions to "Open Settings" in General settings, then single-click the tray icon to get in.
The navigation bar on the left has 7 pages:
| Page | Responsibility |
|---|---|
| ⚙️ General settings | Tray icon, tray click behavior, performance compatibility, startup behavior, auto-hide main window at screen edge |
| 📸 Screenshot settings | Selection region, interaction behavior, hint display, sticky note, image processing |
| 🖊️ Annotation settings | Annotation tool defaults, watermark, visibility and order of screenshot toolbar buttons |
| 🎥 Recording settings | Recording mode, encoding, recording effects, camera, output format, GIF, frame rate, audio |
| ⌨️ Hotkey Settings | 16 customizable global hotkeys |
| 💾 Saving settings | Image/video naming rules, default image format and quality, history retention policy |
| 🤖 AI Service Config | AI service source, local OCR model, translation settings, custom services and Baidu credentials |
The bottom of the window holds only three buttons — Apply / OK / Cancel: changes are saved only after you click "Apply" or "OK"; clicking "Cancel" alone writes nothing to the configuration. Every page covered in this article follows this rule.
📷 Image placeholder (Figure 1)
Settings overview — shows the 7-page navigation on the left and Apply/OK/Cancel at the bottom To add the image: put the file at docs/public/images/settings-center.webp, then delete this tip block and uncomment the next line
⚙️ General settings
| Group | Settings |
|---|---|
| System tray icon | Current icon preview, Choose Icon... (supports ico / png / jpg / svg), Restore Defaults |
| System tray click behavior | Tray menu button (left / middle / right; the selected button is fixed to "Show tray menu"), action for left / middle / right single-click |
| Performance compatibility | Low-spec Mode (Reduce Screenshot Lag) |
| Startup behavior | Show main window on startup |
| Main window | Auto-hide main window at screen edge + hide delay (1 / 2 / 3 / 5 / 10 seconds) |
Tray icon: the preview area shows the icon currently in use; click "Choose Icon..." to pick a local ico / png / jpg / svg file as a replacement, and "Restore Defaults" to switch back to the icon PixWit ships with.
Tray single-click actions — 7 choices in total:
| Action | Description |
|---|---|
| Show/hide main window | Toggles the visibility of the main window on click |
| Region capture | Same as pressing the screenshot hotkey; goes straight into region selection |
| Show tray menu | The button designated as the "tray menu button" always uses this action |
| Start/stop recording | Click to start recording; click again while recording to stop |
| Open Settings | Opens the Settings window directly on click |
| Browse history quickly | Opens the Screenshot History browser |
| No action | Clicking does nothing |
The defaults are left = Show/hide main window, middle = Region capture, right = Show tray menu. The note in the UI reads: "Double-clicking the system tray icon always behaves the same as the left-click action." — the "Show/hide main window" action has a 300ms debounce internally, so a double-click does not toggle twice.
Low-spec Mode is intended for machines with few cores / low performance: it lowers the frequency of background checks and limits concurrent tasks, and UI highlight responses become slightly slower. It also affects screen recording — once enabled, the recording frame rate is capped at 10fps and the mouse-click and keystroke overlays are turned off.
📷 Image placeholder (Figure 2)
General settings page — shows the tray icon preview and "Choose Icon...", the tray menu button and the single-click action of each of the three buttons, low-spec mode, show main window on startup, and auto-hide at screen edge with its hide delay To add the image: put the file at docs/public/images/settings-general.webp, then delete this tip block and uncomment the next line
📸 Screenshot settings
The page contains 5 groups: Capture region settings / Interaction Behavior / Hints & Display / Sticky Note Settings / Image Processing. All settings and defaults are below:
| Group | Setting | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Capture region settings | Mask Transparency | 50 |
| Window Detection | None | |
| Fullscreen capture | Off | |
| Allow Cross-Screen Capture | Off | |
| Selection Mode | Free Selection | |
| Interaction Behavior | Enable Color Picker | On |
| Close Window After Copy | On | |
| Double-click to Copy and Close Window | On | |
| Auto-complete capture after dragging a region | Off | |
| Hints & Display | Screenshot Save Notification | Off |
| Show operation hint box | On | |
| Show line length label | Off | |
| Sticky Note Settings | Hide sticky note border | Off |
| Image Processing | Enable OCR index | Off |
| Crop Tolerance | 30 | |
| Crop Margin | 5 |
What each group does:
- Capture region settings
- Mask Transparency defaults to 50: at
0the unselected area is fully black, at100it is fully transparent; the slider takes effect in real time. - Window Detection defaults to "None"; the options are
None (no framing)/Window mode only (fast)/Element mode only (precise); press Tab while selecting to cycle through them, and the last choice is remembered. - Fullscreen capture is off by default: once enabled, the screenshot hotkey grabs the whole screen the mouse pointer is on and skips region selection.
- Allow Cross-Screen Capture is off by default: when off, the selection is confined to the screen the mouse pointer is on; keep it off when using multiple monitors with different scale factors.
- Selection Mode defaults to Free Selection; fixed ratios (
1:1 (square)/4:3/9:16 (portrait)/16:9 (landscape)) and fixed-size stamp modes (800×600 / 1024×768 / 1280×720 / 1920×1080 / 500×500 / custom 10~9999 px) are also available; in stamp mode a left click places and confirms the selection box, which can be moved but not resized.
- Mask Transparency defaults to 50: at
- Interaction Behavior
- Enable Color Picker is on by default and only takes effect in screenshot mode.
- Close Window After Copy is on by default: after clicking "Copy" or pressing Ctrl+C in a screenshot, the window closes.
- Double-click to Copy and Close Window is on by default: when turned off, double-clicking in the editor window no longer performs "copy and close".
- Auto-complete capture after dragging a region is off by default: when enabled, releasing the mouse finishes the screenshot and you no longer enter the editor window.
- Hints & Display
- Screenshot Save Notification is off by default: when enabled, a successful save raises the system notification "Screenshot Saved / Saved: <file name>".
- Show operation hint box is on by default: controls the operation hint text in the top-left corner while capturing.
- Show line length label is off by default: when enabled, drawing a line shows
N px.
- Sticky Note Settings: Hide sticky note border is off by default; when checked, new sticky notes no longer carry the blue glowing border.
- Image Processing: Enable OCR index is off by default; when enabled, screenshots are text-recognized in the background so you can search Screenshot History by text; Crop Tolerance defaults to 30 and Crop Margin to 5, both used by the toolbar's "Crop Solid Border".
Note
The Screenshot settings page contains only the 5 groups above — there are no extra hidden options. To change the dimensions of the image itself, use "Adjust image size and quality" in the image viewer; to trim a solid border, use "Crop Solid Border" in the toolbar.
🖊️ Annotation settings
| Group | Setting | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Annotation tools | Default corner radius (0~50, step 2) | 0 (square corners) |
| Text annotation font | Default (follow system) | |
| Filter selection by tool type | Off | |
| Watermark settings | Watermark text, font size, color, font, position, margin, tile spacing, also add date and time, time format | See the watermark table below |
| Toolbar buttons | Left column "Hidden buttons", right column "Buttons shown on the toolbar", Restore default order | — |
- Default corner radius: affects the corner radius of the rectangle tool;
0means square corners; the range is 0~50 with a step of 2. - Text annotation font: follows the system font by default and can be changed to any system font.
- Filter selection by tool type: when enabled, after you pick an annotation tool you can only click-select annotations of that type on the canvas, and other types are treated as empty (which avoids mis-selecting overlapping annotations); when disabled, everything becomes selectable again. It is toggled only in Annotation settings.
Watermark settings
The watermark toggle is the watermark button in the screenshot toolbar (off by default); the parameters are on the Annotation settings page:
| Setting | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Watermark text | PixWit | Up to 100 characters |
| Font size | 24 | 8~72 px |
| Color | Translucent gray | Click the swatch to choose (opacity supported) |
| Watermark font | Default (Microsoft YaHei) | Can be changed to a system font |
| Position | Bottom right | Top left / Top right / Bottom left / Bottom right / Tiled (45° tilt) |
| Margin | 20 | 0~200 px |
| Tile spacing | 150 | Only shown for the "Tiled" position |
| Also add date and time | Unchecked | Once checked, the time format becomes selectable |
| Time format | yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss | 6 formats available |
Toolbar buttons
The right column is the left-to-right order of the screenshot toolbar; the left column holds the buttons that are not shown. How to use it:
- Select a row, then click the arrow buttons in the middle:
→adds it to the toolbar (show),←removes it from the toolbar (hide),↑↓change the order. - Double-clicking a row also moves it between the two columns.
- Clicking Restore default order brings back the factory arrangement; it only changes the UI — you still need to click "Apply" to write it to disk.
- If both columns are emptied, no buttons at all appear on the toolbar; press Esc to exit the screenshot in that case.
📷 Image placeholder (Figure 3)
Annotation settings → Toolbar buttons — shows the left column "Hidden buttons", the right column "Buttons shown on the toolbar" and the → ← ↑ ↓ move buttons To add the image: put the file at docs/public/images/settings-toolbar-buttons.webp, then delete this tip block and uncomment the next line
🎥 Recording settings
The groups and defaults on the Recording settings page are summarized below; for what each group does and how the recording flow works, see Screen Recording:
| Group | Main settings | Default |
|---|---|---|
| 🎯 Recording Mode | Region Recording / Fullscreen Recording | Region Recording |
| ⚙️ Encoding & Performance | Prefer hardware encoding, detect available encoders | Prefer hardware encoding |
| Recording Effects | Mouse cursor, mouse click position, keyboard keys, fullscreen hotkey hints, fullscreen control toolbar | All on except "Keyboard keys" |
| 📹 Camera (PIP) | Enable PIP, select camera, detect/preview | Off |
| 📸 Screenshot While Recording | Allow screenshots while recording | Off |
| 📼 Output Format | MP4 / MKV / GIF | MP4 |
| 🎨 GIF Advanced Settings | Fast / Standard / Best quality | Fast mode |
| 🎬 Video Quality | Clear / Balanced / Compressed | Balanced |
| 🎞️ Frame Rate | Frame rate value and presets, disable adaptive frame rate | 15 fps |
| 🔊 Recording Audio | Mute / System audio / Microphone / System audio + microphone | System audio |
| 🔉 Volume Control | System audio, microphone (only shown when both are recorded) | 100% / 150% |
Changes on the Recording settings page likewise only take effect after you click Apply or OK at the bottom of the Settings window.
⌨️ Hotkey Settings
Three groups, 16 items in total:
| Group | Item | Default hotkey |
|---|---|---|
| ⌨️ Detailed Hotkey Settings | 📷 Screenshot / Sticky Note | F1 |
| 🎥 Record (start/stop) | F3 | |
| ⏸️ Pause/Resume Recording | F4 (only while recording) | |
| 🖼️ Clipboard sticky | Ctrl+Shift+V | |
| 📁 Save to Folder | Ctrl+Alt+S | |
| 🎨 Screen Recording Annotation Hotkeys | 📏 Draw Line | Alt+I |
| ➡️ Draw Arrow | Alt+J | |
| ⭕ Draw Circle | Alt+O | |
| 🟦 Draw Rectangle | Alt+K | |
| ❌ Exit Annotation | Alt+Esc | |
| 🤖 AI Feature Hotkeys | 📝 Text Recognition (OCR) | Ctrl+O |
| 📊 Extract Table | Ctrl+E | |
| 📐 Extract Formula | Ctrl+M | |
| 🌐 Translation | Ctrl+T | |
| 💡 AI Analysis | Ctrl+I | |
| 💬 AI dialog | Ctrl+D |
For a full list of defaults and hotkeys, see Hotkey Reference.
- Every item can be cleared with the × on its right (which effectively disables that hotkey), and the Restore Defaults button on the page resets them all at once.
- Only combinations of letters, digits, F1-F12 and common function keys (Space, Enter, Esc, Tab, arrow keys, etc.) are supported; unsupported keys raise the toast "This key is currently not supported as a global shortcut. Please use letters, numbers, F1-F12, or common function key combinations instead." and ask for another one.
- This page does not check for duplicates: assigning the same combination to two features does not report an error right away; only when registration fails does a "Hotkey Conflict" toast appear from the tray.
- If the occupied combination is a recording-related hotkey, a dialog appears saying "Recording disabled - hotkey conflict".
💾 Saving settings
| Group | Setting | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Image Save Settings | Default Save Format (PNG / JPEG / WebP / BMP / GIF images) | PNG |
| Image Quality (1~100, only applies to JPEG/WebP; double-click the slider to restore 90) | 90 | |
Filename Prefix (leave empty to use each feature's default prefix, e.g. PixWit_screenshot) | Empty | |
| Separator (underscore / hyphen / dot / space / none) | Underscore | |
| Date format (6 options; the dropdown shows the current time rendered in that format as a sample) | yyyyMMdd_HHmmss | |
| 📁 Video Save Settings | Filename prefix (default PixWit_Recording), separator, date format | Underscore, yyyyMMdd_HHmmss |
| Screenshot History Management | History Retention Policy: Don't Save / Keep Forever / Keep for 1 Week / Keep for 1 Month / Keep for 3 Months | Keep Forever |
- Image Quality only applies to JPEG / WebP; double-clicking the slider quickly restores it to 90.
- When Filename Prefix is empty, each feature uses its own default prefix (for example
PixWit_screenshotfor screenshots,PixWit_stickyfor sticky notes, andPixWit_scrollingfor scrolling screenshots). - History Retention Policy:
- Don't Save: screenshots are no longer written to history;
- The other options (Keep Forever / Keep for 1 Week / Keep for 1 Month / Keep for 3 Months) clean up expired screenshots in the background when you open the Screenshot History browser; favorited screenshots are never cleaned up.
- The save location for Screenshot History is not changed on this page; use the tray menu instead: Screenshot History → 📁 Change Save Path... (you can choose to migrate the old screenshots over; migration copies them and does not delete the original files).
🤖 AI Service Config
The AI Service Config page gathers "which AI service to use" in one place: the three checkboxes under AI Service Source can be combined, and the priority is always Local > Custom > Pixwit (Custom AI Service, Pixwit AI (Recommended, ready to use), Local OCR only); the "Current OCR channel" is shown live below. The same page also holds OCR Settings, the Local OCR model (Auto (Recommended) / tiny (Built-in, fast) / small (High accuracy), changes take effect after a restart), Translation Settings, plus the large language model service card and the Baidu OCR / Baidu table recognition credentials that only appear once "Custom AI Service" is checked (stored in the program's ai_credentials.json).
For how each capability works and what its parameters mean, see:
Tip: some legacy messages in the program still point users to the "system tray menu" to find AI Service Config, but the actual entry point is always Settings.