R – Adding an ‘paste screenshot’ option to Mantis bugtracker

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We're using the Mantis bugtracker (version 1.1.8), which is based on PHP. To ease the workflow of adding bugs we'd like to add an option to paste screenshots from the clipboard directly into the 'new bug form'.

Screenshots make bugreports much more valuable for developers, so I'd like to make adding them as easy as possible. Preferably without using an external application, but right in the browser.

I've looked all over for a way to add this, but no luck. How do other people do this? Am I missing something obvious?

edit: The bugtracker is a private one, in a small company, so I'd be willing to accept the security risks that for example Java applets present.

Best Answer

There isn't really a way to do this short of using ActiveX, applet or Flash-type technology on the client. Even then, there are numerous security roadblocks. A browser has no easy way to convert stuff from the clipboard into a suitable format for upload to a website, and even if it did there would be security concerns. For example, malicious code in a page could copy sensitive information from your clipboard and send it to the page's site without you even knowing it was happening.

Update: There is a standalone screen capture utility which claims to work with Mantis (and a whole bunch of other bug-trackers). This is probably your best option.

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