Sharing Screenshots in Linux

I have been using Github Issues recently and loving its simplicity. Unfortunately, I’ve found that I often need to upload screenshots to demonstrate bugs and Issues does not support file uploads. There are Windows and Mac applications that solve this problem by capturing a screenshot, uploading it, and copying a URL to access the screenshot to the clipboard.

I did not find any Linux applications that will capture/upload a screenshot and copy the URL but I discovered a thread in the Dropbox forums with a script that does just that. I added comments to the script, changed the variable names, removed the need for a temporary file, and added a notify-send call as a visual cue (should work on Ubuntu). I have the script mapped to Ctrl-PrtScrn in Ubuntu.

#!/bin/sh # Ubuntu-specific modification of http://wiki.dropbox.com/TipsAndTricks/ShareScreenshots # Change these DB_USER_ID=YOURDBUSERID BITLY_USERNAME=YOURBITLYUSERNAME BITLY_API_KEY=YOURBITLYKEYHERE DROPBOX_PUBLIC_DIR=~/Dropbox/Public SCREENSHOT_DIR=screenshots CAPTURE_DELAY=0 PICTURE_QUALITY=50 FILE_EXTENSION=png TIME=$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S) FILENAME=$TIME.$FILE_EXTENSION # Move to the directory where screenshots will be stored mkdir -p $DROPBOX_PUBLIC_DIR/$SCREENSHOT_DIR cd $DROPBOX_PUBLIC_DIR/$SCREENSHOT_DIR # Take screenshot and save in screenshot directory scrot -d $CAPTURE_DELAY -q $PICTURE_QUALITY $FILENAME # Get Dropbox public URL for screenshot DB_URL="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/$DB_USER_ID/$SCREENSHOT_DIR/$FILENAME" # Get bit.ly shortened URL for Dropbox URL ESCAPED_DB_URL="$(echo $DB_URL | sed 's,:,%3A,g;s,/,%2F,g')" BITLY_API_CALL="http://api.bit.ly/v3/shorten?login=$BITLY_USERNAME&apiKey=$BITLY_API_KEY&longUrl=$ESCAPED_DB_URL&format=txt" SHORT_URL=$(curl -s -S $BITLY_API_CALL) # Copy shortened URL to clipboard echo $SHORT_URL | xclip -sel clip # Display message to user (requires libnotify) notify-send "Screenshot added" "Screenshot link copied to clipboard: $SHORT_URL"

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Sharing Screenshots in Linux

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