Take a screenshot of a URL programmatically in Google App Engine?

Question

I would like to take a screenshot of a rendered webpage in Google App Engine. Any suggestions on the best way I can accomplish this? Any Java libraries that I can programmatically render a page to a JPG or PNG?

Answer 1

You would really need a complete render engine for this to work, and I doubt any of them would run on Google App Engine. I think it would be best to use an external API such as thumbalizr. Also have a look at BrowserShots.

Answer 2

i would use a public webservice for that. something like girafa. if you need shots for all browsers browsershots is the one for you.

Answer 3

Try whether you can use SWT in GAE. It contains a browser control which you can render to. I've posted an answer here with some code how to do save the content of the browser widget as a PNG but I can't find it anymore.