8 ms·

Show HN: Screenshots in Chrome, Globally Available

30 points by rolstenhouse 7y ago

rolstenhouse 7y ago
I made this extension out of a frustration from working with my friend, sending screenshots without linking to the article (or design) where it came from. Screenshot HQ solved this by pulling the URL when the screenshot was taken. In order to mimic our workflow as much as possible, it uses the open graph social html tags to load the screenshot directly on the page in Slack. We're thinking about adding comment capabilities), among other features (i.e. automatically rendering a mobile, tablet, and desktop screenshot, immediately making the background transparent etc.) and would love any thoughts.
- yegle 7y ago
  It would be awesome if we can draw annotations (arrow, circle etc).
- ascorbic 7y ago
  For the specific use of sharing on Slack, one simple way on a Mac is Command-Control-Shift-4, which saves the screenshot image to the clipboard. You can then paste that into Slack.
  - Vinnl 7y ago
    I do the same on Ubuntu: ctrl+shift+PrntScr to screenshot part of your screen to your clipboard.
TranquilMarmot 7y ago
Firefox recently added some really nice tools for taking screenshots: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-screenshots https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-screenshots I feel like the one thing it's missing is "upload this screenshot and give me a shareable URL"... I always end up going to imgur and pasting the copied screenshot in there to get a URL.
- kenrick95 7y ago
  Maybe seamless integration with Firefox Send https://send.firefox.com/ https://send.firefox.com/ will be great
  - rolstenhouse 7y ago
    This is really cool. I can see how the e2e encryption could be super valuable. Thanks for suggesting!
    - godelski 7y ago
      Another nice feature about it is that you can set time limits or number of downloads. So you can upload something and not feel like it will be on the internet "forever".
- mcny 7y ago
  It used to have that and the service got discontinued. For example, https://screenshotscdn.firefoxusercontent.com/images/[guid-like-unique-identifier-here].png https://screenshotscdn.firefoxusercontent.com/images/[guid-l...
  - rolstenhouse 7y ago
    Interesting. It looks like it was just the less popular option. https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2019/01/24/clarifying-the-future-of-firefox-screenshots/ https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2019/01/24/clarifyin...
- Kunigaikstis 7y ago
  Try out LightShot. Started using it years ago and never looked back. Completely free as well
- skinkestek 7y ago
  > I feel like the one thing it's missing is "upload this screenshot and give me a shareable URL" I've seen someone nearly who was close to getting seriously burned by such a feature. Uploading needs to be very clearly advertised and easy to avoid otherwise people will get burned. I guess that's why Firefox removes that feature.
tdy721 7y ago
Dropbox can integrate with the system screen taker for MacOS. Very useful. Automagically get a link in the clipboard every time you screen. I’ve seen this done so many ways
- rolstenhouse 7y ago
  Looks super useful. I'm all for eliminating steps in typical workflows. I've never been at a company that used Dropbox so didn't even know it existed.
- czottmann 7y ago
  I've built something like this on macOS using a simple web server. As soon as a screenshot hits the desktop (and either Ctrl or Shift is held) the file is uploaded to the server and the public URL is copied to the clipboard. It's basically just a folder watcher and a shell script.
jowsie 7y ago
The homepage seems super light on info, and the Chrome extension page isn't much better. Where are the images hosted? I've always just used ShareX with imgur/streamable/self hosted/etc. Works system wide too.
- rolstenhouse 7y ago
  Hey Jowsie! Yes, currently the files are hosted on just on a public s3 bucket, so definitely not the most secure, but maybe something to add in the future. I haven't heard of ShareX so will check that out and definitely look into a self-hosted option.
letientai299 7y ago
The extension seems great. But I don't see how would you monetize it from the home page. And if this get popular, how will you pay for the hosting and storage?
- rolstenhouse 7y ago
  I'm flexible on monetization patterns for now, but if this were to take off, I'd imagine it'd be some sort of team-based pricing for teams heavily using it and introducing a collaboration-first experience.
wheelerwj 7y ago
its a cool idea, but seriously this seems like another privacy nightmare in the making.
- v3nom 7y ago
  It is really easy to capture private data in screenshots without even noticing. I have made a Chrome extension to blur or scramble website content, so it is safe to capture screenshots in support or editorial scenarios. https://datamask.tech https://datamask.tech
andrethegiant 7y ago
I'd love this to be native... something like $(0).screenshot() would produce a base64 string of the rendered element. Why doesn't this exist? Why do we need to rely on browser extensions? The closest JS-based equivalent I've found is html2canvas, which doesn't work as well as advertised.
- Sephr 7y ago
  You can screenshot DOM structures natively by including them in an SVG <foreignObject>, composing an SVG blob URL, rendering it in an <img> tag, and then drawing that to a <canvas>. I started a project related to this years ago but never finished it. Now that same-origin canvas taint issues have been fixed in most browsers, maybe it's time for me to work on this again. A related API that is not accessible to web content is Safari's console.screenshot() utility[1]. [1]: https://twitter.com/webkit/status/1222236427326373888 https://twitter.com/webkit/status/1222236427326373888
- mindfulplay 7y ago
  It's a security landmine. IFRAMES, mixed content, downloading / rendering behaviors are all sensitive and may contain private information known only to the browser/user and not the containing webpage.
- aswan 7y ago
  Firefox has: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Taking_screenshots https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Taking_screen...
narenst 7y ago
I have been using CloudApp for similar use case. It’s pretty good for screenshot sharing with annotations. https://www.getcloudapp.com/ https://www.getcloudapp.com/
thrownaway954 7y ago
really... another screenshot app??? and not an app, an extension to chrome? which (according to the 2 gifs on their website) ONLY takes screenshot from chrome. so i can't take a screen shot of something from another application in another window. i see nothing new that this thing brings to the table? why would i use this this over something like lightshot (https://app.prntscr.com/en/index.html https://app.prntscr.com/en/index.html), which is native, has everything that thing has and more like annotations?

30 points by rolstenhouse 7y ago

I made this extension out of a frustration from working with my friend, sending screenshots without linking to the article (or design) where it came from. Screenshot HQ solved this by pulling the URL when the screenshot was taken. In order to mimic our workflow as much as possible, it uses the open graph social html tags to load the screenshot directly on the page in Slack. We're thinking about adding comment capabilities), among other features (i.e. automatically rendering a mobile, tablet, and desktop screenshot, immediately making the background transparent etc.) and would love any thoughts.

yegle 7y ago
It would be awesome if we can draw annotations (arrow, circle etc).
ascorbic 7y ago
For the specific use of sharing on Slack, one simple way on a Mac is Command-Control-Shift-4, which saves the screenshot image to the clipboard. You can then paste that into Slack.
- Vinnl 7y ago
  I do the same on Ubuntu: ctrl+shift+PrntScr to screenshot part of your screen to your clipboard.

TranquilMarmot 7y ago

Firefox recently added some really nice tools for taking screenshots: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-screenshots https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-screenshots I feel like the one thing it's missing is "upload this screenshot and give me a shareable URL"... I always end up going to imgur and pasting the copied screenshot in there to get a URL.

kenrick95 7y ago
Maybe seamless integration with Firefox Send https://send.firefox.com/ https://send.firefox.com/ will be great
- rolstenhouse 7y ago
  This is really cool. I can see how the e2e encryption could be super valuable. Thanks for suggesting!
  - godelski 7y ago
    Another nice feature about it is that you can set time limits or number of downloads. So you can upload something and not feel like it will be on the internet "forever".
mcny 7y ago
It used to have that and the service got discontinued. For example, https://screenshotscdn.firefoxusercontent.com/images/[guid-like-unique-identifier-here].png https://screenshotscdn.firefoxusercontent.com/images/[guid-l...
- rolstenhouse 7y ago
  Interesting. It looks like it was just the less popular option. https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2019/01/24/clarifying-the-future-of-firefox-screenshots/ https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2019/01/24/clarifyin...
Kunigaikstis 7y ago
Try out LightShot. Started using it years ago and never looked back. Completely free as well
skinkestek 7y ago
> I feel like the one thing it's missing is "upload this screenshot and give me a shareable URL" I've seen someone nearly who was close to getting seriously burned by such a feature. Uploading needs to be very clearly advertised and easy to avoid otherwise people will get burned. I guess that's why Firefox removes that feature.

tdy721 7y ago

Dropbox can integrate with the system screen taker for MacOS. Very useful. Automagically get a link in the clipboard every time you screen. I’ve seen this done so many ways

rolstenhouse 7y ago
Looks super useful. I'm all for eliminating steps in typical workflows. I've never been at a company that used Dropbox so didn't even know it existed.
czottmann 7y ago
I've built something like this on macOS using a simple web server. As soon as a screenshot hits the desktop (and either Ctrl or Shift is held) the file is uploaded to the server and the public URL is copied to the clipboard. It's basically just a folder watcher and a shell script.

jowsie 7y ago

The homepage seems super light on info, and the Chrome extension page isn't much better. Where are the images hosted? I've always just used ShareX with imgur/streamable/self hosted/etc. Works system wide too.

rolstenhouse 7y ago
Hey Jowsie! Yes, currently the files are hosted on just on a public s3 bucket, so definitely not the most secure, but maybe something to add in the future. I haven't heard of ShareX so will check that out and definitely look into a self-hosted option.

letientai299 7y ago

The extension seems great. But I don't see how would you monetize it from the home page. And if this get popular, how will you pay for the hosting and storage?

rolstenhouse 7y ago
I'm flexible on monetization patterns for now, but if this were to take off, I'd imagine it'd be some sort of team-based pricing for teams heavily using it and introducing a collaboration-first experience.

wheelerwj 7y ago

its a cool idea, but seriously this seems like another privacy nightmare in the making.

v3nom 7y ago
It is really easy to capture private data in screenshots without even noticing. I have made a Chrome extension to blur or scramble website content, so it is safe to capture screenshots in support or editorial scenarios. https://datamask.tech https://datamask.tech

andrethegiant 7y ago

I'd love this to be native... something like $(0).screenshot() would produce a base64 string of the rendered element. Why doesn't this exist? Why do we need to rely on browser extensions? The closest JS-based equivalent I've found is html2canvas, which doesn't work as well as advertised.

Sephr 7y ago
You can screenshot DOM structures natively by including them in an SVG <foreignObject>, composing an SVG blob URL, rendering it in an <img> tag, and then drawing that to a <canvas>. I started a project related to this years ago but never finished it. Now that same-origin canvas taint issues have been fixed in most browsers, maybe it's time for me to work on this again. A related API that is not accessible to web content is Safari's console.screenshot() utility[1]. [1]: https://twitter.com/webkit/status/1222236427326373888 https://twitter.com/webkit/status/1222236427326373888
mindfulplay 7y ago
It's a security landmine. IFRAMES, mixed content, downloading / rendering behaviors are all sensitive and may contain private information known only to the browser/user and not the containing webpage.
aswan 7y ago
Firefox has: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Taking_screenshots https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Taking_screen...

narenst 7y ago

I have been using CloudApp for similar use case. It’s pretty good for screenshot sharing with annotations. https://www.getcloudapp.com/ https://www.getcloudapp.com/

thrownaway954 7y ago

really... another screenshot app??? and not an app, an extension to chrome? which (according to the 2 gifs on their website) ONLY takes screenshot from chrome. so i can't take a screen shot of something from another application in another window. i see nothing new that this thing brings to the table? why would i use this this over something like lightshot (https://app.prntscr.com/en/index.html https://app.prntscr.com/en/index.html), which is native, has everything that thing has and more like annotations?