

Ask YC: Is there a utility that takes thumbnail style 'screenshots' of webpages? - fendale

I have noticed more and more different websites displaying little thumbnail screenshot images of entire webpages, for instance (picking something a total random:<p>http://dzone.com/links/gumbo_inline_twoway_data_binding.html<p>Notice the snapshot image of the website it links to in the center of the page.  How do you do that?  Its appearing in so many places, I am guessing there must be a library for it somewhere, but I have no idea what!
======
fendale
Sounds like webkit2png is the best bet, but its OS X only which is no good if
you want to run it on a webserver.

The alternative is khtml2png, which will run on a linux webserver, but it
looks like its going require a lot of messing about with virtual X-Servers to
get it going <http://khtml2png.sourceforge.net/index.php?page=faq>

Now the question is whether I can get my creaky old Fedora 4 box to get this
all working without rebuilding the whole thing!

Edit: looks like a good tutorial at
[http://corpocrat.com/2008/08/26/capturing-a-screenshot-
of-a-...](http://corpocrat.com/2008/08/26/capturing-a-screenshot-of-a-
website/)

------
tuukkah
Some discussion here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=196148>

------
adrianwaj
www.mr-thumb.de

there are heaps of others but this site doesn't place a logo on the image.

~~~
fendale
I would prefer something I can install on my own server as opposed to a
service. That site is all in German, but it looks like its webservice that
captures the images for you - am I correct?

~~~
adrianwaj
It's never failed me. Check out the source for how I use it:
<http://bit.ly/4g6ihb>

