Website screenshot capture with ASP.NET and PHP

Capturing the thumbnail of a website is pretty useful when you are creating a web application like web 2.0 directory, site review, website preview, etc... So how do you implement it in your language? I did it in my asp.net application which was was very easy. And i searched for the way in PHP. Although, PHP doesn't support natively, there are tricks that you can use to capture screenshots of websites. Here is the code snippets;

ASP.NET

Never forget that ASP.NET and Windows Forms applications are all about .NET Framework. So theoretically we can do all the things in an ASP.NET application like we do in Windows Forms. The idea behind our solution will be to initialize a hidden WebBrowser component and load our web site inside it to be able to get screenshot.

Original article can be found on Codeproject.

Imports System
Imports System.Drawing
Imports System.Drawing.Imaging
Imports System.Windows.Forms
Imports System.Diagnostics

Namespace GetSiteThumbnail

   Public Class GetImage
       Private S_Height As Integer
       Private S_Width As Integer
       Private F_Height As Integer
       Private F_Width As Integer
       Private MyURL As String

       Property ScreenHeight() As Integer
           Get
               Return S_Height
           End Get
           Set(ByVal value As Integer)
               S_Height = value
           End Set
       End Property

       Property ScreenWidth() As Integer
           Get
               Return S_Width
           End Get
           Set(ByVal value As Integer)
               S_Width = value
           End Set
       End Property

       Property ImageHeight() As Integer
           Get
               Return F_Height
           End Get
           Set(ByVal value As Integer)
               F_Height = value
           End Set
       End Property

       Property ImageWidth() As Integer
           Get
               Return F_Width
           End Get
           Set(ByVal value As Integer)
               F_Width = value
           End Set
       End Property

       Property WebSite() As String
           Get
               Return MyURL
           End Get
           Set(ByVal value As String)
               MyURL = value
           End Set
       End Property

       Sub New(ByVal WebSite As String, ByVal ScreenWidth As Integer, &_
        ByVal ScreenHeight As Integer, ByVal ImageWidth As Integer,&_
        ByVal ImageHeight As Integer)
           Me.WebSite = WebSite
           Me.ScreenWidth = ScreenWidth
           Me.ScreenHeight = ScreenHeight
           Me.ImageHeight = ImageHeight
           Me.ImageWidth = ImageWidth
       End Sub

       Function GetBitmap() As Bitmap
           Dim Shot As New WebPageBitmap(Me.WebSite, Me.ScreenWidth, &_
       Me.ScreenHeight)
           Shot.GetIt()
           Dim Pic As Bitmap = Shot.DrawBitmap(Me.ImageHeight, &_
       Me.ImageWidth)
           Return Pic
       End Function
   End Class

   Class WebPageBitmap
       Dim MyBrowser As WebBrowser
       Dim URL As String
       Dim Height As Integer
       Dim Width As Integer

       Sub New(ByVal url As String, ByVal width As Integer, &_
       ByVal height As Integer)
           Me.Height = height
           Me.Width = width
           Me.URL = url
           MyBrowser = New WebBrowser
           MyBrowser.ScrollBarsEnabled = False
           MyBrowser.Size = New Size(Me.Width, Me.Height)
       End Sub

       Sub GetIt()
           MyBrowser.Navigate(Me.URL)
           While MyBrowser.ReadyState <> WebBrowserReadyState.Complete
               Application.DoEvents()
           End While
       End Sub

       Function DrawBitmap(ByVal theight As Integer, &_
       ByVal twidth As Integer) As Bitmap
           Dim myBitmap As New Bitmap(Width, Height)
           Dim DrawRect As New Rectangle(0, 0, Width, Height)
           MyBrowser.DrawToBitmap(myBitmap, DrawRect)
           Dim imgOutput As System.Drawing.Image = myBitmap
           Dim oThumbNail As System.Drawing.Image = New Bitmap(twidth, &_
       theight, imgOutput.PixelFormat)
           Dim g As Graphics = Graphics.FromImage(oThumbNail)
           g.CompositingQuality = Drawing2D.CompositingQuality.HighSpeed
           g.SmoothingMode = Drawing2D.SmoothingMode.HighSpeed
           g.InterpolationMode = Drawing2D.InterpolationMode. &_
                       HighQualityBilinear
           Dim oRectangle As Rectangle
           oRectangle = New Rectangle(0, 0, twidth, theight)
           g.DrawImage(imgOutput, oRectangle)
           Try
               Return oThumbNail
           Catch ex As Exception
           Finally
               imgOutput.Dispose()
               imgOutput = Nothing
               MyBrowser.Dispose()
               MyBrowser = Nothing
           End Try
       End Function
   End Class

End Namespace

PHP

Original article can be found here on The Pimp. Alternatively you can use third party thumbnail generators API, but your app will be dependent which you will not want.


$im = imagegrabscreen();
imagepng($im, "myscreenshot.png");

$browser = new COM("InternetExplorer.Application");
$handle = $browser->HWND;
$browser->Visible = true;
$im = imagegrabwindow($handle);
$browser->Quit();
imagepng($im, "iesnap.png");
$im = imagegrabscreen();

$browser = new COM("InternetExplorer.Application");
$handle = $browser->HWND;
$browser->Visible = true;
$browser->Navigate("http://blog.thepimp.net");

/* Still working? */
while ($browser->Busy) {
com_message_pump(4000);
}
$im = imagegrabwindow($handle, 0);
$browser->Quit();
imagepng($im, "iesnap.png");

$browser = new COM("InternetExplorer.Application");
$handle = $browser->HWND;

$browser->Visible = true;
$browser->FullScreen = true;
$browser->Navigate("http://blog.thepimp.net");

/* Is it completely loaded? (be aware of frames!)*/
while ($browser->Busy) {
com_message_pump(4000);
}
$im = imagegrabwindow($handle, 0);
$browser->Quit();
imagepng($im, "iesnap.png");
?>

It should work with any kind of window as long as you give the correct handle (usually $obj->HWND).

• php_gd2.dll for 5.2.x thread safe build
• php gd image documentation
• IE manual