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I love being able to paste an image from the clipboard in having clicked the insert image button, but I don't like needlessly clicking on things if I don't have to (mostly!)

Currently what happens is as below

Click this button:
enter image description here

This pops up:
enter image description here

Paste your clipboard that contains an image to get this dialog box:
enter image description here

Once you click confirm the image is uploaded and you get your markup.

I think it'd be great if we could just paste straight from the edit box, to be presented with the Add a Picture confirmation dialog box. I don't see the need for requiring the extra step of clicking the image button. Obviously it should be kept to allow for discoverability and because of the other upload methods.

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8
  • This means changing the code for the editor used by Stack Exchange, added proper tag.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Apr 4, 2013 at 12:30
  • Didn't think that was a problem as the popup box that appears when it's clicked has been changed. Don't know the internal works of it all or where the 3rd party library ends and SE code starts though.
    – George Duckett
    Commented Apr 4, 2013 at 12:31
  • It's not really 3rd party, the editor is open source project written by Stack Exchange employee (Marc, I think). Anyway the editor itself must handle the onpaste event and in case image is being pasted do the magic that is already in place.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Apr 4, 2013 at 12:38
  • Ahh ok sorry, thought you added your comment to indicate that it couldn't be done (I assumed because we can't change the editor code).
    – George Duckett
    Commented Apr 4, 2013 at 12:45
  • Asked this before: meta.stackexchange.com/q/120943/168269
    – Gert Arnold
    Commented Apr 4, 2013 at 12:56
  • @GertArnold: Did see that one, but thought that since it was asked when the feature wasn't there at all my request was different enough (an enhancement really) to warranty another question. Particularly when there was an accepted answer.
    – George Duckett
    Commented Apr 4, 2013 at 13:44
  • There is one problem with this!! WE CAN'T ADD FREE HAND CIRCLES IF WE DON'T USE AN IMAGE EDITWOR!
    – Cole Tobin
    Commented Aug 2, 2013 at 22:13
  • I wrote myself a script that implements it. But it's now malfunctioning (after three years of service).
    – Tomáš Zato
    Commented May 24, 2017 at 15:38

2 Answers 2

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3

This has been implemented, so you can paste or drag and drop the images directly into the editor.

See: Editor improvements for images and links.

paste or drag and drop images into WYSIWYG editor

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1
7

I agree that this is an important feature that will dramatically speed up the time it takes to make and post screenshots, as well as lead to better quality answers.

This is already supported on GMail and GitHub, so why not do something similar to what they did? Here's a GitHub project that seems to provide code for this:

https://github.com/Rovak/InlineAttachment

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2
  • I am a bit skeptical of the claim that icreasing the speed of attaching images will improve post quality. Images are sometimes helpful, but in many cases the focus should be on encouraging the askers and answerers to add searchable, editable code that can be used to reproduce an issue or solution rather than to paste a moment-in-time snapshot of the result.
    – George Cummins
    Commented Aug 2, 2013 at 21:59
  • 3
    I agree that incentives to post code as an image are bad. However, I never use images to post code. Most of the images I post are when doing web development and there is something funny looking on the page.
    – Andrew Mao
    Commented Aug 2, 2013 at 22:04

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