How to take screen shots from various browsers on a local machine for web development?

Question

I'm looking for a program that has similar functionality to this. It's basically a service that takes snap shots or screen shots of a web page. I need one that runs local for my development behind a corporate firewall. Ideally, it would take screenshots at set intervals to a folder that I specify.

Anyone familiar with such a product? Alternatively, has anyone set up any sort of script to open various browsers and take screen shots?

I'll be running it on multiple virtual machines so that I have access to IE 6, 7, & 8 while I do my primary development in Firefox.

Any thoughts on alternative approaches are also welcome.

Edit: I'm thinking that it may involve scripting a solution especially if I want to handle FF 3.0, 3.5, & Chrome.

Answer 1

I know this is something SuperPreview is aiming to achieve, however I'm not sure how complete the product is yet:

http://blogs.msdn.com/xweb/archive/2009/03/18/Microsoft-Expression-Web-SuperPreview-for-Windows-Internet-Explorer.aspx

Answer 2

If at all possible, find a service that will do it for you and punch a hole in your firewall! I've investigated thumbnails/snapshots on various platforms and it's a nightmare to get right. Even then it's not 100% certain (unexpected popups, freezes, upgrades, delays in page loading). Sorry it's probably not the answer you're looking for but you'd save many headaches.

Answer 3

I would look into http://www.browsershots.org/ It's open source, so it should get you started if you really need to roll your own.

Answer 4

You could use Selenium to run through your app grabbing screenshots as needed on the various platforms and browsers you need to support.

Oh - to respond to the edit, I'm unsure of Chrome support, but Safari (also WebKit based) is supported.