Simple way to show a thumbnail of a webpage?

[lorien1973]

Is there a simple way to show a thumbnail (maybe 80x80 or 100x100) of a webpage? thru javascript or php or something?

[digitalpoint]

No, there is nothing simple about rendering a webpage with a script. The "easy" way to do it would be to utilize thumbshots.org.

[debunked]

I don't know about using java or php, but go to analogx.com and download the screen capture program, all his programs are very small but work well.

You will probably still have to resize the pictures or there may be a way to change it in the settings.

[lorien1973]

thumbshots doesn't seem to have a lot of thumbs available - none of my sites had 1 available it only seemed to pull thumbs for dmoz listings (im at 2 years pending for dmoz LOL). I tried it out for a while. I'm looking for something for my directory - automated hopefully that would let "premium urls" show a thumbnail of the site next to their listing. If it was a cron process that'd work for me too.

Probably would have to get a custom programming job on this I guess (sql select to get the urls to thumbnail, take it, size it, etc) ?

[jameshsi]

Hi!
I trying to find a php script that you just feed it some URLs and it can create the URLs you gave it to some JPGs files on the server side, do anyone know this kind of scripts ?

[Connect]

You are looking for a script to automatically create a thumbnail/screehshot of the webpage given the url?

Check this page http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum21/9182.htm

[jameshsi]

Yes, I am looking for a script to automatically create a thumbnail/screehshot of the webpage given the url, but after viewing the thread, no, it is not I expecting, What I want is :
Use a php script and maybe MySQL to do all that automatically,the script read URL from database and go to the URL grab the page and save it as a thumbnail jpg/png file so I can check the file later.

Is it possibile ?

[Connect]

I think that is possible, but just have no idea how it is done. Some websites, such as alexa.com has thumbnails of websites, how do they create the thumbnails?

[misohoni]

Try Alexa, work out the code something like thumbs.alexa.com/img?=http://webnam.com

[Connect]

Try Alexa, work out the code something like thumbs.alexa.com/img?=http://webnam.com

Yes, impossible to tell how alexa capture the screenshot of a website by looking at the img src tag.

[misohoni]

Err not impossible, you didn't check...

Example:
http://thumbnails.alexa.com/image_server.cgi?size=large&url=fengshuichinese.com/

is after &url= that's your url...

[Amos]

You would have to use a browser. I looked into this as well and realized that Alexa was the best choice to go with as well.

[Connect]

Err not impossible, you didn't check...

Example:
http://thumbnails.alexa.com/image_server.cgi?size=large&url=fengshuichinese.com/

is after &url= that's your url...

What do you mean?

Alexa obviously has an engine to capture screenshots of websites and store them on their server. But we don't know how to do this on our own. Of course, we can borrow the screenshots from alexa by using the url (http://thumbnails.alexa.com/image_server.cgi?size=large&url=fengshuichinese.com/), but this is not a good solution because we still do not know how to do the capture ourselves using our own script on our own server.

Also, notice that the alexa url will only return screenshots for websites already captured by alexa. If you enter a website which never cpatured by alexa, you don't get a screen capture.

[misohoni]

I think Alexa is your best bet...if Alexa hasn't captured a site, you can always use Alexa to find the url you are looking for and then "Update the Thumbnail".

Thumbshots is pretty good though....

Otherwise you need to create your thumbnails by hand and upload to each relevant site.

[Connect]

Create your thumbnails by hand and upload to each relevant site is tedious if you have a lot of websites to capture. That's why I have been asking how to automate the capture by using scripts or any other addon...

[links_mngr]

I have a component which you can install on your server. You then need to call the component with a simple line of code. This component can return both the image of a webpage and also its thumbnail. You can set the size of the image and the jpg compression level. The component works with PHP, ASP, Perl, JAVA, Python. If anyone is interested it costs $100.

[Connect]

What soft of component is that? Is it a java class, or a DLL?

[ferret77]

yeah i would like to see it too

there is an asp component that does what you are looking for,

http://www.websupergoo.com/abcdrawhtml-1.htm

[stuw]

I have a component which you can install on your server. You then need to call the component with a simple line of code. This component can return both the image of a webpage and also its thumbnail. You can set the size of the image and the jpg compression level. The component works with PHP, ASP, Perl, JAVA, Python. If anyone is interested it costs $100.

I looked at doing something similar sometime ago. It involved having a linux box, mozilla browser and gimp imaging software.

Basically you need a browser to get the url and render how the page would look, then imaging software to take that output and save it as an image. PHP can then resize that image to your hearts content. I'm not too techie, so I gave up. It can be done. If you can find a good 3rd party solution that you can just install, then that would be my choice.

Just found the URL for the one I looked at : http://www.boutell.com/webthumb/

[ITExchange]

What alexa and similar websites do, is that there are a few servers running, which extract the links from a db, open the web site in a web browser, and generate screen shots. The application that does that is not a web script, but a desktop application. Then the pictures are uploaded into the db.

What can be easyer than that? ;)

[dnthcaseme]

why u are sucking ur mind to...............just simple way install fresh copy of window XP ,,,,,,,,,,,,hows tht
Imran Hashmi

[Roze]

Sorry to dig up a rather old thread...I hacked together my minute PHP knowledge and got this to dynamically show alexa's thumbnail...just make sure $url is defined. Now...whether or not they mind us doing this is another question?

$url = "http://www.tubanews.com";

preg_match("/^(http:\/\/)?([^\/]+)/i",
"$url", $matches);
$host = $matches[2];

// get last two segments of host name
preg_match("/[^\.\/]+\.[^\.\/]+$/", $host, $matches);
$shorturl = $matches[0];
explode ($shorturl);

echo "<img src=\"http://thumbnails.alexa.com/images/bigjpeg/$shorturl[0]/$shorturl[1]/$matches[0]_.big.jpeg\">";

[ITExchange]

I might repeat myself... but, there is no way in the world to do this from within a webscript without using a desktop component. So, you shouldn't bother trying.

[Pathan]

You need to use PHP scripts for this purpose.

[SiCK]

I thought about this before, the easiest way is to do it a server in VB, a simple socket listen for the url, brower.navigate to the page with the explorer object in a picture box, save the picture box, return the image. A couple of hours of coding. Nothing like having a dedicated server running a visual basic!

[bzzubzzu]

The one way I would accomplish creating a thumbnail is to write some sort of X-Windows based program in linux to automate the browser loading a site and then screen capture programmatically.

On a windows system, I'd probably write a VB or MFC app to automate IE and then captue the screen into a device context, resize it and save to a file.

[arbos]

I might repeat myself... but, there is no way in the world to do this from within a webscript without using a desktop component. So, you shouldn't bother trying.

I hate to bump an extremely old thread but...yes it is possible...so yes...you are wrong.

[ITExchange]

I hate to bump an extremely old thread but...yes it is possible...so yes...you are wrong.

Can you give us details?

[zdestiny]

http://64.39.14.230/dh-asp/view.asp

[sarahk]

It's a bit rough, but do you know who is behind it?

[Sketchy]

ttp://64.39.14.230/dh-asp/view.asp

Very good ULR, does anyone know the code which makes this work? And is it only possible in ASP or can it be done in PHP?

[zdestiny]

This is the website responsible for the link i posted above - http://www.websupergoo.com/abcdrawhtml-1.htm

[ITExchange]

They don't capture CSS based background images. :(

[Sketchy]

This is the website responsible for the link i posted above - ttp://www.websupergoo.com/abcdrawhtml-1.htm


Looks like a good site, thank you :)