Displaying web page snapshot.

[mexabet]

I'm currently developing a domain whois lookup script in PHP. I want it to display a snapshot of the homepage of the searched website. Moreover, I would like to get this script to display Google PageRank. Please, does anyone know how to incorporate these features into my script? I would appreciate any clue.

[petr.pavel]

Hi Mexabet,
unless you want to create the thumbnail yourself
(e.g. http://www.zubrag.com/scripts/website-thumbnail-generator.php)
you could use some of these:
http://thumbnails.iwebtool.com/
http://www.splitbrain.org/blog/2007-08/23-free_website_thumbnail_services

I don't want to sound rude but... did you use Google before asking (query: website thumbnail)?

As for PageRank, try looking into source code of these Firefox extensions:
https://addons.mozilla.org/cs/firefox/search?q=pagerank

[mexabet]

Hi petr.pavel,

Thanks for your suggestion. I'm checking out those links to see if I can find something useful. But a quick check at zugrab told me their thumbnail generator is for Windows hosting. I'm using Linux.

No offenses taken at your question. Honestly I didn't search this issue with Google before asking. I literally forgot the basic thing. Glad you woke me up.

Hi Mexabet,
unless you want to create the thumbnail yourself
(e.g. http://www.zubrag.com/scripts/website-thumbnail-generator.php)
you could use some of these:
http://thumbnails.iwebtool.com/
http://www.splitbrain.org/blog/2007-08/23-free_website_thumbnail_services

I don't want to sound rude but... did you use Google before asking (query: website thumbnail)?

As for PageRank, try looking into source code of these Firefox extensions:
https://addons.mozilla.org/cs/firefox/search?q=pagerank

[digital-ether]

Thumbshots.org offers a free service.

<img src="http://open.thumbshots.org/image.aspx?url=[LINK]" border="1" />

It only gives back thumbs for domains however, not urls.

Their paid service allows URLs.

Hi petr.pavel,

Thanks for your suggestion. I'm checking out those links to see if I can find something useful. But a quick check at zugrab told me their thumbnail generator is for Windows hosting. I'm using Linux.

No offenses taken at your question. Honestly I didn't search this issue with Google before asking. I literally forgot the basic thing. Glad you woke me up.

PHP has COM and .Net support on windows builds. So I guess that is why the tutorials are mostly for windows. (COM and .Net allow access to windows apps through a common API)

However, you can do do this with Linux and the command line if the application that generates the thumbnail can be invoked from the command line.

For example, you could use a firefox extension that takes screenshots, and invoke it to take a screenshot of a url through the command line.

eg:
http://pearlcrescent.com/products/pagesaver/doc/
http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/06/how-to-capture-save-screenshots-of.html
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6168

for example if you have python and webkit2png, you can invoke it from PHP as:

exec('python /path/to/webkit2png http://www.apple.com/');

You could also just start firefox or any other browser in an X windows session, and use "import" to take a screenshot.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/125951/command-line-program-to-create-website-screenshots-on-linux

I notice Daniweb uses thumbshots.com. Just hover over a link in a post and you'll get a thumbshot. Having checked it out, it costs $4.99/month. Sounds good if you've got that sort of cash.

//EDIT

Sorry my mistake, there's a free version at www.thumbshots.org.

[sarajohnmich]

Use w3snapshot.com to generate website screenshots.