Is there an alternative to the CALayer -renderInContext: method?

Question

I need a way of capturing a view or the screen with everything just exactly like it appears on screen. -renderInContext: won't do that. Are there any alternatives to this?

Answer 1

Several, but start with:

UIGetScreenImage();

Which returns a CGImageRef. If you use this, note that the image is retained, and you should release it.

Edit:

Add for completeness the main other way to do this:

UIWindow *aWindow = [[UIApplication sharedApplication].windows objectAtIndex:0];
UIGraphicsBeginImageContext(aWindow.frame.size);
[[aWindow layer] renderInContext:UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext()];
UIImage *screenshot = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();
UIGraphicsEndImageContext();