Shareutils

Various utilities for sharing things you see on your screen with others.

• clipboard2web: Sends the text you have selected with your mouse to a paste site, and puts the URL to the paste in your "middle-click" clipboard.
• screenshot2web: Lets you select a region of your screen with the mouse, then sends a screenshot of that area to a paste site, giving you back the URL in your clipboard.
• video2web: Lets you select a region of your screen with the mouse, then records a screen capture of it. You guessed it - it also uploads to a paste site and give you back the URL in your clipboard.

Set up

Once you've got the scripts, you'll want to make sure you have some dependencies installed. The following debian/ubuntu packages will suffice:

• curl
• xclip
• imagemagick
• recordmydesktop
• python-xlib
• xautomation
• libnotify-bin

Here as a one-liner:

sudo apt-get install curl xclip imagemagick recordmydesktop python-xlib xautomation libnotify-bin

Using the scripts

The best way is to have them all bound to keys for easy invocation, but initially, it's best to run them directly just to check that they work.

clipboard2web

Select some text anywhere on your screen (terminal, browser, whatever). Then run this script. If it has worked, you'll shortly see the text you selected open in a browser, and if you middle-click, you'll find that the URL to view the text has been put into your "middle click" clipboard.

The way I typically use this, is to select something I want a work colleague to see (stack trace, for example), run this script (by pressing a key, more on that later), then middle-clicking in IRC for them. We don't auto-paste the link by default, as this gives a safety buffer, but you can rig that up if you want.

screenshot2web

Run the script. Your cursor should change to a crosshair. Drag to select an area on the screen. If the script works, you'll shortly see a screenshot open in a browser, and if you middle-click, you'll find that the URL to view the screenshot has been put into your "middle click" clipboard.

Typical usage is as for clipboard2web. Note that as it's uploading an image, there might be a short delay between you finishing selecting, and the image being pasted.

video2web

Note that you need to run this script once to start recording, and again to stop and trigger the upload. If you record too much, it's likely the upload will take quite some time, and hog your bandwidth too!

The first time you run the script, the cursor won't change to a crosshair (bug), but you'll be able to select a region of the screen. From then on, that region will be recorded. Once you've done what you wanted, run the script again. If it works, after a reasonable delay (transcoding/uploading the video), it'll open in a browser and you'll find that the URL to view the video has been put into your "middle click" clipboard.

Again, note that you need to run the script once to select the area and start recording, and then again to stop the recording and do the transcode/upload.

Binding the scripts to keys

Once you know they all work, binding them to keys is the best way to get the most advantage from them.

For the i3 window manager, I did this in my config file:

bindsym F6 exec ~/src/shareutils/clipboard2web
bindsym F7 exec ~/src/shareutils/screenshot2web
bindsym F8 exec ~/src/shareutils/video2web

If someone knows how to do it for gnome and wants to send me a pull request adding those instructions here, please do!

If you have them bound to keys and they're not working, the file $HOME/.xsession-errors is often where they'll be logging.

Legal

Authored by Nigel McNie & Martyn Smith, Shoptime Software. All code placed in the public domain.