[Feature Request]: Settings toggles to disable screenshot animations and UI sound effects

[dennyschroeder]

Hi @richiemcilroy,

For users who prefer a lightning-fast, minimalist, and high-performance workflow, the current visual interface animations and audio feedback during screenshot selection can feel a bit heavy & maybe costs performance.

Proposed Solution:
Please consider adding simple toggle switches in the General or Screenshots settings to:

• Disable window animations: Turn off the moving/scaling entry animations of the UI elements (when starting a capture).
• Disable selection effects: Provide an option to mute selection audio clips and screen dimming overlays.

This would make the tool feel incredibly snappy and lightweight for power users.

[linear]

CAP-715

[tembo]

Some context on where this functionality lives in the codebase:

Settings infrastructure:

• All user preferences are stored in GeneralSettingsStore in apps/desktop/src-tauri/src/general_settings.rs. New toggle fields would be added here with #[serde(default)] attributes and corresponding defaults.
• The frontend settings UI is in apps/desktop/src/routes/(window-chrome)/settings/general.tsx, which reads/writes via generalSettingsStore from apps/desktop/src/store.ts.
• The TypeScript type definitions live in apps/desktop/src/utils/general-settings.ts.

Animations to control:
The toolbar transition animations you're seeing are in apps/desktop/src/routes/capture-area.tsx (lines 179-187 for the toolbar entry animation using <Transition> with enterClass/exitClass). The selection hint animation is a separate component at apps/desktop/src/components/selection-hint.tsx and uses CSS keyframes defined in apps/desktop/src/styles/theme.css (around lines 1107-1175: cap-selection-hint-selection, cap-selection-hint-cursor, cap-selection-hint-click).

The CSS already includes a reduced-motion media query (line 1000: animation: none; for @media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce)), so the app does respect system accessibility preferences. The explicit toggle would give users finer control independent of their OS settings.

Audio playback:
Looking through the codebase, I don't see audio playback implemented for screenshot captures specifically - the audio infrastructure in apps/desktop/src-tauri/src/audio.rs is focused on recording mic/system audio rather than UI sound effects. If you're hearing selection sounds, it might be from the system level rather than Cap. Worth clarifying what specifically you're hearing.

Related feature request:
#1851 requests a "freeze screen" option during area selection, which is a complementary UX improvement for the screenshot workflow - might be worth considering these together since they both aim at a faster, more focused capture experience.