I need to be able to display a screenshot grab of specific websites in thumbnail size. Instead of going to the site and screenshotting it, I would like PHP to do the job for me.
Is this possible?
TS77 0 Newbie Poster
diafol
Yep. You need the url of the image, then copy and resize it. Should be simple enough. Loads of resize scripts online.
TS77 0 Newbie Poster
Ardav, I think you have mistaken my request.
I can already get PHP to display images, thats not what I want.
I suppose its like a portfolio site. If I own 3 websites, site 1 is called 1.com, site 2 is called 2.com and site 3 is called me.com
I want a visitor to visit me.com and in there, will be a screenshot of 1.com and 2.com.
If I make changes to the code of 2.com, then I want me.com to display the image on pageload (or refresh) automatically, without the need for me to make a screenshot and update it upon every site change.
diafol
Ah I see. In which case, you need to check the lastupdated datetime of the site against the lastupdated image. If site updated since the image - create a new image.
diafol
Getting the file modified time of a remote file is really challenging. You could do it via curl, but these scripts can be a pain to install. I've tried a number of them and find them to be problematic.
One approach that may work would be to have a new page (datecheck.php) in the remote sites with the following data:
<?php
echo filemtime("index.php");
?>So from your site, call this:
$site1LastUpdate = file_get_contents("http://www.site1.com/datecheck.php");Your host needs to allow file_get_contents from a remote site, otherwise you may be stuck with curl.
Check this against an image file on the site displaying the images:
$site1ImageUpdate = filemtime("images/site1.jpg");THen once you have the dates, you can compare them:
if($site1LastUpdate > $site1ImageUpdate){
//create new image and overwrite the last
}else{
//use the current site image
}This could be slow if you had to do this for many images though.
Anyway, thought I'd throw that your way. Perhaps somebody could offer a better solution?
TS77 0 Newbie Poster
I will give it a go, thank you so much for your time.
There is a few images to load though (about 12) hopefully this should be enough :)
diafol
If you have more than one page in one website, then you can add them to the same datecheck.php file, to avoid making to many calls.
TS77 0 Newbie Poster
I wonder if something like:
<div style="display:inline">
<div width="300px" height="auto">
<?php include ( 'http://www.1.com' ); ?>
</div>
<div width="300px" height="auto">
<?php include ( 'http://www.1.com' ); ?>
</div>
</div>would work?
diafol
Are you wondering if it will work or have you tried it?
TS77 0 Newbie Poster
Was wondering whilst I was in work, going to try it tonight (unless you tell me it wont work lol)
TS77 0 Newbie Poster
Tried this which works apart from the resizing issue:
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Untitled Document</title>
<style type="text/css">
#outerWrapper {
margin-right: auto;
margin-left: auto;
width: 400px;
}
#google {
float: left;
width: 200px;
max-height: 300px!important;
}
#yahoo {
float: right;
width: 200px;
max-height: 300px!important;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div id="outerWrapper">
<div id="google">
<?php
readfile("http://www.google.co.uk");
?>
</div>
<div id="yahoo">
<?php
readfile("http://www.yahoo.com");
?>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html> diafol
What are you doing with this? Are you displaying the whole contents of the remote pages on your site? I don't see why you'd want to do that. You're not creating an image here - you're outputting html to your page. Just have a look at the underlying html.
I really really don't suggest you do this.
You just need an up-to-date screenshot.
Did you try my suggestion: http://www.daniweb.com/web-development/php/threads/352992/1500664#post1500664
TS77 0 Newbie Poster
The contents would be a live feed of my previous work in a small container.
But I did try your code and got 2 problems, firstly:
Notice: Undefined variable: site1LastUpdate in C:\wamp\www\Test\1.php on line 16and
Notice: Undefined variable: site1ImageUpdate in C:\wamp\www\Test\1.php on line 16I know I have to declare them but I am unsure where.
The other problem I had was the last part:
if($site1LastUpdate > $site1ImageUpdate){
[B]//create new image and overwrite the last[/B]
}else{
[B]//use the current site image[/B]
}This was the bit I didnt understand how to do, how can PHP take a screenshot? I tried researching the answer but to be honest, it all seemed a little to advanced for me. So I found the readfile solution that does what I need, but just need to figure out how to resize it (or get your code to work lol)
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