Website picture from PHP

Hi

does anyone of you know a save method on PHP to relyably, maybe using other
programs create scrennshots (thumbnails) of websites?

I am the administrator of the open source project (at SourceForge) "TSEP -
The Search Engine Project" (http://tsep.sf.net) and we might want to show
pictures of the website our search engine has found. The generation process
of the thumbnails should be pretty automatic (as much as possible)

My tries to find an "optimal" solution did not bring any good results yet,
so I am hopeing for better information here.

Olaf

--
http://www.team-noehring.de

As PHP is a server side programming language it is impossible to make
screenshots of the client screen with it! Sorry, but i guess you have to
take the screenshots on your own. ;-)

--
You don't need a reason to help people!

Hi Mathias

> As PHP is a server side programming language it is impossible to make
> screenshots of the client screen with it! Sorry, but i guess you have to
> take the screenshots on your own. ;-)

I know that.
I have found solutions where the php script does the following:
1. start new instance of webbrowser with desired URL
2. start screencapture program (i.e. irfanview). capture most front window
(browser with URL)
3. resize picture, save in specific place (i.e. c:\)
4. upload picture using php upload feature.

User needs in my example irfanview which might not be available

Olaf

--
---
http://www.team-noehring.de

Olaf Noehring wrote:
> Hi
>
> does anyone of you know a save method on PHP to relyably, maybe using other
> programs create scrennshots (thumbnails) of websites?
>
> I am the administrator of the open source project (at SourceForge) "TSEP -
> The Search Engine Project" (http://tsep.sf.net) and we might want to show
> pictures of the website our search engine has found. The generation process
> of the thumbnails should be pretty automatic (as much as possible)
>
> My tries to find an "optimal" solution did not bring any good results yet,
> so I am hopeing for better information here.
>
> Olaf
>

I guess that including a stripped-down version of the gecko rendering
engine is overkill for your project, but anyways, I believe it is
capable of rendering output to a file (at least in print mode it can!).

On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 17:59:03 +0100, Olaf Noehring wrote:
> does anyone of you know a save method on PHP to relyably, maybe using
> other programs create scrennshots (thumbnails) of websites?

You need something like http://www.danvine.com/icapture/ has; maybe you
can use their (or similar) external service?


--
Firefox Web Browser - Rediscover the web - http://getffox.com/
Thunderbird E-mail and Newsgroups - http://gettbird.com/

Hi Dani

> I guess that including a stripped-down version of the gecko rendering
> engine is overkill for your project, but anyways, I believe it is
> capable of rendering output to a file (at least in print mode it
> can!).

Can you post an URL please. I do not know "gecko"

Thanks Olaf
--
---
http://www.team-noehring.de

Hi Ewoud

>> does anyone of you know a save method on PHP to relyably, maybe using
>> other programs create scrennshots (thumbnails) of websites?
>
> You need something like http://www.danvine.com/icapture/ has; maybe you
> can use their (or similar) external service?

Yes, simliar to this. Even more similar to thumbshots.org. I would also
include a script if that makes things more easy (i.e. for windows scripting
host to do some work).

I see the "problem", that it could take very long to make screenshots the
way I described before:

1. start new instance of webbrowser with desired URL
2. start screencapture program (i.e. irfanview). capture most front window
(browser with URL)
3. resize picture, save in specific place (i.e. c:\)
4. upload picture using php upload feature.


Olaf
--
http://www.team-noehring.de

Olaf Noehring wrote:
> Hi Dani
>
>
>>I guess that including a stripped-down version of the gecko rendering
>>engine is overkill for your project, but anyways, I believe it is
>>capable of rendering output to a file (at least in print mode it
>>can!).
>
>
> Can you post an URL please. I do not know "gecko"
>

It's the rendering engine used by Mozilla Suite, Firefox, Thunderbird,
etc... Its real name is NGLayout, not Gecko (my fault).

This document explains how to plug it into your code:

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/embe...ingBasics.html


DISCLAIMER: I haven't done this, and I don't even know if it is really
feasible. I just happened to have the idea.

Hi Dani

>>>I guess that including a stripped-down version of the gecko rendering
>>>engine is overkill for your project, but anyways, I believe it is
>>>capable of rendering output to a file (at least in print mode it
>>>can!).

>> Can you post an URL please. I do not know "gecko"

> It's the rendering engine used by Mozilla Suite, Firefox, Thunderbird,
> etc... Its real name is NGLayout, not Gecko (my fault).
>
> This document explains how to plug it into your code:
>
> http://www.mozilla.org/projects/embe...mbeddingBasics
> .html

Thanks fpor the URL. - It's very much appreciated

Olaf

--
http://www.team-noehring.de

0000=year wrote:

> Hi
>
> does anyone of you know a save method on PHP to relyably, maybe using
> other programs create scrennshots (thumbnails) of websites?
>
> I am the administrator of the open source project (at SourceForge) "TSEP -
> The Search Engine Project" (http://tsep.sf.net) and we might want to show
> pictures of the website our search engine has found. The generation
> process of the thumbnails should be pretty automatic (as much as possible)
>
> My tries to find an "optimal" solution did not bring any good results yet,
> so I am hopeing for better information here.

mumble... ok... it is not done with PHP... but I think this could help...
there is a command (can't recall it's name right now) which allows you to
capture an X screenshot from the command line. Basically what you need to
to is a file (or a SQL table) containing all the URLs to be "shooted". Then
have them opened with Firefox (using the '-remote "openurl()"' function)
and the script to capture the screen. Once the capture is done you can load
the next site.

The only part missing is the name of the proggie to do the screenshot from
the console. I am 101% sure it exists...

hope it helps... or drop me a line... I'll be happy to help...

--
William Maddler