Ask HN: How does Google take client-side screenshots?

4 pointskevinsimper2 comments

On most of Google pages they allow to give feedback that also takes a screenshot of your active screen to help the feedback, but how do they take a screenshot without using UserMedia.

https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/

You have to give 3 stars or less to get a prompt to give feedback and then you can click either and it takes a screenshot.

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stackoverflow discussion: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4912092/using-html5-canva...

slides from a member of the feedback team: https://www.elliottsprehn.com/preso/fluentconf/

relevant JS library: https://github.com/niklasvh/feedback.js

Thanks for linking to the slides from the feedback team! Have not seen that.

The problem however is that the stackoverflow discussion and the relevant JS library uses html2canvas and it generates unuseable screenshots containing more errors than probrably the original screen and therefore does not help on the problem the user has.

Here is a screen of google cloud docs, logo messed up etc. http://i.imgur.com/8Ayy5XL.png

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