Include URL when taking a screenshot

[Anyone2863]

the idea come from @briankrebs actually:

"When you do screenshot things for your records/files, include the full address as shown in the URL bar."

https://twitter.com/briankrebs/status/1566801691755925507

I towuld be nice if Firefox screenshot tool would do that, especially for full page screenshots:

either display the URL 

• in the title
• or in the picture itself
• or as meta data into the file

[Jon]

Thanks for submitting an idea to the Mozilla Connect community! Your idea is now open to votes (aka kudos) and comments.

[Anonymous]

If you are fine with having it in the filename, maybe this:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/save-website-as-image/

can help.

[S2000]

Metadata is a must, and perhaps there should be a checkbox to add the URL on the picture itself.

[sfoster]

I've filed bug 1789900 to track this. Its an interesting idea. We try to make bugs detailed and actionable, so I probably need to eventually split that out into the 2 proposals: including URL in the PNG metadata, and layering URL on top of the image itself.

The metadata idea is probably less complicated, but also a much more niche use-case I would have thought? As some/most software doesnt show this metadata to the user, we would probably need to include that somehow in the Screenshots UI, or at least clearly set user expectations - to avoid any surprises.

I've added a note in the bug about including the URL in the filename we create. I think that is covered by bug 1768547

Adding the URL to the image itself brings us ever closer to the requirements and expectations around printing. Are screenshots the new printed pages? While very different technically, the uses cases for both do seem to converge. Figuring out how to align or potentially combine these 2 distinct product features will be a significant challenge - but might be a useful way to think about both.

[IC_Europe]

hi, was this request/idea to integrate the URL in a firefox-generated screenshot considered? is there now a way to capture the URL in a firefox generated screenshot? THANKS

[sfoster]

Yes, it in our backlog, we are tracking this as bug 1789900

[gioisco]

It is a great idea!

I had the same idea and I discovered this post.

It would be great to include url on top or on bottom of the screenshot.

When the screenshot is included in a documentation, showing the url, can help people to understand where the screenshot come.

1 kudos for this idea 🙂

[MediaboMoz]

No brainer I would say. Of course you need meta data in some form. The world is all about it these days. No wonder with all that data, as you have it on your own storage! Checkbox in Firefox - General settings to include it in the filename [default] or meta data of picture. Perhaps extra checkboxes in the dialog. Follow the standards, make it easy for everyone..

[sfoster]

There isn't really a standard that I'm aware of that is a good fit here. Like I say I can see a few, not necessarily mutually exclusive options:

1. Capture (some of) the URL in the filename. We are limited in filename length particularly on Windows. So many URLs would be truncated. And of course many of the characters in a URL need to be removed or encoded to make a valid, saveable filename.

2. Render the URL as part of the screenshot image. So, maybe a white bar with black text. Again, URL would need to be truncated in many cases depending on the image width. But at least the host/domain would be visible most of the time.

3. Include the URL as part of the PNG metadata. We would need to figure out which EXIF Tag to use. Maybe ImageDescription? Or Artist, or .. there are others. If anyone knows of an industry precedent or best practice or has a suggestion, let me know.

[tiagov8]

Agreed - I receive many content requests and this is super helpful

There is an SSW Rule with this as standard and a nice example: https://www.ssw.com.au/rules/include-useful-details-in-emails

[Kip]

Embed URL in page screenshot PNG's zTXt chunk

Currently Firefox supports taking screenshots of whole or portions of webpages and saving as PNGs. This is a very useful feature. However sometimes a user will take screenshots of a page and then forget to make note of the source URL.

The PNG format supports the zTXt chunk which can contain arbitrary textual metadata. This could be used to store the source URL. Other projects are already doing this.

[Jon]

(Note: similar ideas have been merged into this thread)

[sfoster]

I did some looking into this the other day. PNG has a `iTXt` chunk which is probably the right choice for including title/description text with double-byte characters / unicode in it. We can embed an XML document in there using RDF and XMP to tag the image with source URL, title and description. Tools like `exiftool` can find and list those keyword/values back out for us.

We're tracking work on this in bug 1798543. Its currently in the backlog and waiting for someone to have the time and motivation to make it happen. There's 2 parts: the writing of the new chunk into the PNG file. And the UI to allow the user to see and edit what gets saved in there.