Web Gadget: Webshot

Configuration

<img src="https://webshot.islandnet.com/?url=http://helpdesk.islandnet.com">

In addition to the size of the thumbnail image, you can choose from various screen resolutions by adding "&width=X" to the URL (where X is 640, 800, 1024, 1152, or 1280 for screen resolutions of 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1152x864, or 1280x960). The default is 800x600. In all cases, the colour depth of the virtual screen is 24 bits for the best looking images.

If the target web site does not fit within the specified screen resolution, the webshot image will display scroll bars just like you'd see if you visited the site yourself.

Generating webshots takes a certain amount of time and system resources, so they are not generated in "real time", but are queued and generated in the background. Depending on the number of queued jobs, the server load, etc. webshots may be generated in as little as 30 seconds. During busier periods they may take several minutes.

Once a webshot image is ready it is cached so subsequent requests for the same webshot are immediate. Cached webshots will be queued for regeneration automatically if they are more than a week old, so the displayed image should always be reasonably current. Webshots that are not requested for extended periods will be purged from the cache (which means they will have to be regenerated if they are requested later).

The first time you request a webshot for a given site it is queued for rendering and the following image is displayed until it's ready:

Within a few minutes (depending on the current queue size) your webshot should be rendered and the displayed image will change the next time you load it.

If you provide an invalid or unreachable URL you will see this image:

NOTE: This gadget will only work for sites hosted on Islandnet.com's network. If you try to use this gadget on sites hosted elsewhere you will see this image instead:

Sorry, but this gadget is not available for use anywhere else.

Rendering Features & Limitations:

• All standard web pages should render just as one would expect to see when viewing them with MSIE, Netscape, Firefox, etc. including GIF, JPG, and PNG images.

• Flash animations are supported.

• Supports the common web fonts (Arial, Times New Roman, Courier New, Verdana, etc.) with antialiasing.

• Supports style sheets.

Limitations:

• The web site is given 30 seconds to load before the display is captured. If the site in question takes too long to load then the image may appear to be incomplete.

• Javascript is ignored, which isn't generally an issue unless the site in question uses a Javascript redirect.

• Java applets are not supported.

• Embedded objects that require special plugins (other than Flash) will not be rendered.

Example: