uploading screenshots with FTP - enhanced..

[grokit]

I thought I would share with you one of my favorite ways to use SnagIt.

(please note that while part of the following can be done with the FTP output which is part of SnagIt, it has some drawbacks which are being discussed elsewhere on this board...)

I often discuss topics with colleauges in several forums on the Internet. A picture usually explains more that many words (1000?). Thus I have the habbit to show screenshots to explain my points. This is done by adding a weblink to the posting. If correctly used, the screenshot will show up inside the article. Obviously, i am using SnagIt for the screenshots :)

I could use the Flickr plugin for this (and I have used it in the past), but it has some limitations (ie. no customized file naming). The most important disadvantage is that the picture ends up on a web server over which I have no direct control. So I rather want to use an own server. Nonetheless, I am more or less copying the basic Flickr plugin functionality...

A good way to upload pictures is the File Transfer Protocol (FTP). SnagIt also provides this mechanism, but it is unfortunately limited as well.

The solution for me comes with the little freeware utility called ShellFTP from Jonathan Silverman at http://sunlit-software.com/index.php?page=shellftp. I have integrated ShellFTP over the output to program functionality. (btw, I am not related to Jonathan in any way)

When I take a screenshot with this profile, the picture will be immediately uploaded (ie. after postprocessing with the SnagIt Editor) the progress is visible in the system notification area :



After the upload is finished, the picture file location is available directly in the Windows copy/paste buffer and can be inserted anywhere by a simple Ctrl-V (or Shift-Ins). the format of the file location in the clipboard can be anything from a simple link to more complex strings:

http://smilebear.info/pics/smile.gif
<a href="http://smilebear.info/pics/smile.gif">smile.gif</a>
<embed src="http://smilebear.info/pics/smile.gif" width="216" height="16"></embed>
[-img]http://smilebear.info/pics/smile.gif[/img] <--I "corrupted" the img tag here on purpose

Installation

1. Download and install ShellFTP from http://sunlit-software.com/index.php?page=shellftp&s=download

2. Start ShellFTP and configure the upload destination (there are several destinations possible, see in the extensions section below)



In the WWW tab of the Profile Editor, you have to define the modifications to the weblink pointing to the uploaded picture, that is put into the copy/paste buffer (see also --filter option described below).




3. Configure a SnagIT profile to output to ShellFTP



I tested this on snagit 9 as well.. works too :)

That's it.

Daniel



Possible extensions:
a.. Different destinations can be setup by using ShellFTP profiles. In SnagIt, the specific ShellFTP profiles are utilized by using the following Parameters line:

-uc "<CaptureFilename>" --profile=[ShellFTP_profilefilename]

b.. The file location string that is put into the copy/paste buffer can be defined. The example below will generate a BBCode link

-uc "<CaptureFilename>" --filter="[img]%u[/img]"

Excerpt from the ShellFTP manual:

a.. --filter=[filter] - Supplies ShellFTP with a filter to use when copying links.
b.. --profile=[filename] - States the profile that will be used for uploading. Filename is relative to path supplied in the profilespath variable of the settings.xml file.
c.. --uri=[uri] - Loads an FTP protocol uniform resource identifier instead of a profile, i.e. ftp://login:password@site.com:21

[BettyJM]

I can't believe version 9 removed the ability to name a file.

ShellFTP is a great workaround. Great tip. Have only one problem.

I can't get my "Copy All" to be correct. For some reason the parameter doesn't pass my filter selection.

I tried quotes, brackets and everything I can think of but nothing works.

-ua "<CaptureFilename>" --filter=<img src="%u">

I got this one to work which is similar:

-ua "<CaptureFilename>" --filter=<embed src="%u" width="216" height="16">


Even tried saving the selection in my profile but the program says that "General error saving options to settings.xml". I can manually get this to work but would love to automate. Any idea how to format the filter= parameter?

[bulldog]

What a killer setup. Works great.

@BettyJM-

The following copies the link to my clipboard, uploads the file and then closes ShellFTP.

-auc "<CaptureFilename>"

Maybe you have to add the a before the u?