

ScreenB.in, short URLs for screenshots - dennisqian

Hi all!
I've been looking for an app like this for quite a while to no avail, so I decided to create it.<p>ScreenBin (screenb.in) lets you paste a screenshot from your clipboard directly into your browser (Chrome only) and instantly receive a short URL to your screenshot. The designer on my dev team has demanded this for a couple of weeks, and I only recently found the time to make it at a hackathon I attended.<p>This is my first time posting to Hacker News and my first live open source product so I'm too sure what to expect, but would love any feedback on the app and suggestions for features and improvements.<p>Todo's:<p>- Google Drive support, so I don't have to host all the images!<p>- some UI for cropping (but that might get in the way of the simplicity)<p>Fun facts:<p>- It's named after its spiritual predecessor (which was a downloadable application found at screenbin.org).<p>- Only works on Chrome as it allows me to extract the clipboard data. Hopefully other browsers adjust their security standards in the near future.
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jiggity
You sir have improved my life by a definite measurable amount. Instantly a
fan. Very clever programming!

Some points:

\- Great usage flow by having both keyboard shortcuts displayed. I would label
each in a smaller font (i.e. "Take Screenshot By..." and "Paste Here With...")
for less savvy users.

\- Could you insert a preview after it finishes uploading? A quick visual
check would rock.

\- I would love you if you could picked a colorful name. The trouble with
"clean" sterile names is the fact it is really difficult to remember
compounded with the url hack. Animals work well.

\- My favorite tool: <http://www.domainhole.com/brainstormer/> Try using the
word "snap" / "paste"

\- Change the tagline to say something about pasting it directly. Your clear
differentiating feature is the fact that uploading doesn't take a dialog.
Something like "Instantly paste your screenshot"

\- There's that momentary ecstasy going "Wow, this is amazing." Have Facebook
like / Twitter share buttons available the moment people see their pictures
appear. This is when the magician just completed the trick and people _want_
to applause. That's your window to spread the word.

\- Add a link to your blog! I had fun reading it. Much more interesting than
just a twitter handle.

\- Polish this site up some and spread the word. It's a very simple app but
has incredible utility. It may take a day or two to polish but it'll provide a
multiplier to the rate of spread. Good side projects can get legs of its own
and help you later down the road.

P.S. Have you guys decided on a project yet?

~~~
dennisqian
wow some awesome advice from the founder of Teevox :D! Looks like I'll be
pushing v2 this weekend >_<!

As for the OwlDen blog, we're launching our fashion ecommerce product in
private to beta users this Friday.

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sunspeck
Very nice, useful.

I find the scroll overflow on the screenshot display to be clunky and
uncomfortable, though. I think I'd prefer a shrink-to-fit/click-to-expand
situation.

Also, I tried pasting a ~1mb JPG photo, and the spinner has been going for a
few minutes now. Might wanna throw an error or something in weird edge cases.

~~~
dennisqian
Hey sunspeck, I've relaunched the app as MonkeyV. Play with it here:
www.monkeyv.com. I've included the feature you requested that allows you to
shrink to fit and click to expand on the image view page. Enjoy!

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apokusin
What's the difference between this and Droplr/CloudApp?

<http://droplr.com> <http://cloudapp.com>

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dennisqian
I don't think you can ctrl+V (paste) screenshots into those. This app allows
you to do just that for screenshots. It's not really for file sharing.

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apokusin
CloudApp: CTRL + OPTION + C

Uploads contents of clipboard.

You can also drag/drop to the icon in the menubar, as well as auto-upload
after ⌘ + SHIFT + 3/4.

~~~
dennisqian
Ah ok, it appears then ScreenBin differentiates from CloudApp because it
doesn't require any installing/downloading of an app to utilize. It's
completely in browser.

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J0415
I noticed that I can't just paste random images to your app. How do you guys
detect that it is a screenshot I am pasting?

~~~
latimer
I don't think they do. I tried pasting a random non-screenshot image and it
worked fine.

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christianmann
No DNS record for screenb.in, but www.screenb.in redirects to monkeyv.com.

