I have an ASP.Net application which as desired feature, users would like to be able to take a screenshot. While I know this can be simulated, it would be really great to have a way to take a URL (or the current rendered page), and turn it into an image which can be stored on the server.
Is this crazy? Is there a way to do it? If so, any references?
I can tell you right now that there is no way to do it from inside the browser, nor should there be. Imagine that your page embeds GMail in an iframe. You could then steal a screenshot of the person's GMail inbox!
This could be made safe by having the browser "black out" all iframes and embeds that would violate cross-domain restrictions.
You could certainly write an extension to do this, but be aware of the security considerations outlined above.
Update: You can use a canvas utility function to get a screenshot of a page on the same origin as your code. There's even a lib to allow you to do this: http://experiments.hertzen.com/jsfeedback/
You can find other possible answers here: Using HTML5/Canvas/JavaScript to take screenshots
Browsershots has an XML-RPC interface and available source code (in Python).
I used the free assembly UrlScreenshot.dll which you can download here.
Works nicely!
There is also WebSiteScreenShot but it's not free.
You could try a browser plugin like IE7 Pro for Internet Explorer which allows you to save a screenshot of the current site to a file on disk. I'm sure there is a comparable plugin for FireFox out there as well.
If you want to do something like you described. You need to call an external process that prints the IE output as described here.
Why don't you take another approach?
If you have the need that users can view the same content over again, then it sounds like that is a business requirement for your application, and so you should be building it into your application.
Structure the URL so that when the same user (assuming you have sessions and the application shows different things to different users) visits the same URL, they always see same thing. They can then bookmark the URL locally, or you can even have an application feature that saves it in a user profile.
Part of this would mean making "clean urls", eg, site.com/view/whatever-information-needed-here.
If you are doing time-based data, where it changes as it gets older, there are probably a couple possible approaches.
If your data is not changing on a regular basis, then you could make the "current" page always, eg, site.com/view/2008-10-20 (add hour/minute/second as appropriate).
If it is refreshing, and/or updating more regularly, have the "current" page as site.com/view .. but allow specifying the exact time afterwards. In this case, you'd have to have a "link to this page" type function, which would link to the permanent URL with the full date/time. Look to google maps for inspiration here-- if you scroll across a map, you can always click "link to here" and it will provide a link that includes the GPS coordinates, objects on the map, etc. In that case it's not a very friendly url but it does work quite well. :)
Related
I want to track pageviews and userinteractions in a Spotify-app.
Spotify says it's possible: https://developer.spotify.com/technologies/apps/guidelines/integration/#usertrackinganalytics
Which »Web Site URL« do i enter when setting up a property for analytics-tracking in a Spotify-App?
Or am I doing it wrong and have to do it in another way?
It doesn't matter.
You can use a fake one if you will.
The only place where GA uses that is when creating links back from the reports to your website. Since your website doesn't exist, it's more like an extension from what I understand. Then you don't need those links anyway.
If feeling not-creative just use:
http://my-spotify-app.com
I don't mind if it is a print screen or export proccess of the page to jpg or even to pdf... how can it be done?
Assuming you literally want to save a screenshot of the user's desktop, this can't be done with server-side technology like ASP, since the user's desktop is not on your server (obviously).
There might be a JavaScript solution (I couldn't find one), or you can use ActiveX (Take a screenshot of a webpage with JavaScript?), which might not be a good idea if this is a public ordering system, since many users won't be able to use (or will turn off) ActiveX--I know I'm personally alarmed to see ActiveX notification these days, and that would likely change my mind about placing an order in the first place.
However, I would very much question the need to take a literal screenshot, instead of just recording the relevant data in a database or log somewhere (and then you could simulate the user's screen).
I am working on a Flex AS3 application and wanted to add the Facebook Like button inside the app. I am unable to find any API or anything apart from the http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like code generator.
Any ideas on how this might be accomplished? I am quite new to the recent changes in the Facebook Platform, so any info would be appreciated.
A direct "like" button should not be possible, since Facebook needs to sandbox the whole thing. Both like button formats (iframe and xfbml) use a sandboxed iframe, so nobody but facebook can set "likes" or know anything about the user.
For that to work with Flash, I think facebook would have to provide the button itself as a SWF file so you can load it in Flash. Then it can create a sandbox within itself and thus load the user information safely. Very much like the Chromeless Youtube Player, where it's almost impossible for Flash to access the actual FLV URL (even through introspection).
But even so, I don't think this would provide enough security... realize that you are dealing with very private user information and credentials here.
The only way I know you can "like" stuff through Flash is first doing the whole Facebook Connect thing (several popup windows asking the user for permissions) and then using the API of your choice to do the actual "liking", for instance, with the Graph API:
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/api#publishing
The closest information I could find are these 2 items so far. Hope it helps you in your journey.
Facebook Developer Site: Source
Facebook like button in flash
I hate answering "no" to a question because what I really mean is "I don't know and I can't find a way". I'm sure your Google-fu is as good as mine. All I can see are Facebook forum posts like this where people are asking the same question and no one is answering.
The examples they give of the like button are either embedded in iFrames or using XFBML <fb:like ../> tag. There are no examples of how to like something using their new graph api or either of their old APIs (FQL and REST API).
I had to get a Facebook like button in a html page (looked like a header on the top) and get the swf embedded below. As its a complete flex app in my case, this work around was possible and plausible
Is there some method to issue a screen capture(browser window content only) from the browser with javascript or a embedded flash object etc so that a full quality image of the page content be saved or printed or an alternative approach.
I have a web app (asp.net 3.5) with google maps and other ajax operations client side like a custom tile server. I have been trying to implement a way for the user to print good quality captures of the webpage.
I have used the basic Window.Print() but in both IE and FF there many artifacts within the google maps and some items such as the popped up bubble doesnt print. I have experimented with save pdf thru cutepdf(just to post an example here) and the quality thru window.print() is low too.
For example, A screenshot with FireShot addon is perfect and what I want the client to have. however that is FF only and I cant ask the clients to install addons/activex controls on their browsers.
Have a look at this download example zip file(4mb) with:
Example screen shot using FireShot
(example of what I want to achieve
thru a html/JS button with in the
page)
Firefox Window.Print() result
(cutepdf used to save as pdf)
IE Window.Print() result (cutepdf
used to save as pdf)
note in 2,3 the little bubble is not printed even when open.
For now, I have added the function on my site to go fullscreen and guide the user to take a screenshot or call the window.print() function.
I am still looking for a method to print/capture my page.
are there any flash/activex controls that I can include in my page and thru them provide a quality print mechanism?
Thanks again for all the help but I still need more. :)
Thank you in advance.
http://rapidshare.com/files/311849636/Print_examples.zip.html
You'll go to all that work only to find that a simple app like Snagit will do the job. Building a SnagIt Screen Capture Plugin
The only way to reliably provide a high-quality print version of whats on-screen in a rich web application is to use the client-side, say JavaScript, to send the server precise information about the current state (where bubbles are, etc.) and use that to generate an image that mimics the positioning. Convert that image to a PDF or what-have-you, then send to the client for download.
Google also has a Static Maps API that might give you good results. I looked into it myself once, and only didn't go with it since (at the time) there were limitations on how many points they could support in a polyline.
I don't think this is possible. It would be quite a security risk to be able to capture the user's screen through scripting (imagine bad sites capturing screen information).
No there is not, though it would come in quite handy at times for bug reporting etcetera.
You will probably get the best result by creating a separate version of the page as a PDF have that being generated. It's no quick fix by all means, but you'll get superb print quality and total control over everything. The map part will probably be a bit tricky though as you need to get the map as a bitmap on the server somehow, and if it's not in flash on the client I don't know how you'd do that.
I want to make a site where there user can basically navigate the web from within an iframe. The catch is that I'd like to be able to have more control over what is rendered within the iframe. Specifically,
I'd like to be able to filter out images or text, disable forms etc.
I'd also like to be able to gather feedback such as what links the users clicked on.
Question 1:
Is this even possible using a standard back-end scripting language (like php), with html and javascript on the frontend?
Question 2:
Would I first need to grab the source of the site before it is rendered, then do whatever manipulation is necessary, and finally re-render it somehow?
Question 3:
Could somebody please explain the programming flow that would occur here (assuming its possible)?
I think you would probably want to grab the source of the of site (with server-side code) before rendering it. You might run into cross-site scripting issues if you try to use JavaScript. Your iframe would load a page like render.php and pass the address of the page to render os a querystring parameter. Then use regular expressions to find elements in the HTML that render.php downloads from the address. Rewrite the HTML as necessary and then write it all out to the iframe.
Rewrite links so that that the user is taken to a page you control and redirected onto a target site if you want to track where people are going. Example: a link in the page needs to go to google.com. You would send them to tracker.php?target=http://google.com. You control tracker.php and can log each load of this page and then redirect the user to the target site.
Update:
Another possible solution is to use Apache or other server to proxy the target website. There are modules like mod_proxy for this. There may also be modules that let you parse the HTML or you could roll your own.
I should point out that even the best solutions offered to your question will be somewhat brittle if you do not have full control over the target site. You will want to have lots of error handling or alerting.
You can have a look at this. It uses iFrame really well, and maybe even use the library it has.