Joes FREE Website Thumbnailer (JWT)

Tested on:               Windows XP SP3, Windows 7 (both 32-bit)
Tested with:             MS Internet Explorer 7 libraries
System Requirements:     Used ~55Mb RAM on 1.6Ghz PC
                         Free Disk space to store your pictures
                         Installed MS Internet Explorer (only uses libraries)
Program Size:            1,190Kb (fits on a floppy disk)
Setup/Install:           None, it's portable (can run off USB or media)
Program Name:            WebsiteThumbnailer_v0_6.exe
Prefix:                  JWT

• Basic Website browser (in its own window - uses installed MS Internet Explorer libraries)
  
• Uses GDIPlus libraries for screenshots and to convert images.
  
• Autohotkey (my favourite automation tool) to combine the two into an executable and interface (almost as quick as google's chrome :c).
  

1. Source Browser Size: Sets what the original picture dimensions are.
2. Output Thumbnail Size: Only several presets but there are free image editors out there that will batch convert your images: 150x100, 200x150, 300x200, and 1:1
3. Output Thumbnail Quality: allows you to specify smaller/bigger files (haven't noticed much difference in how they display, only in the actual size the image uses of disk space).
4. Output Thumbnail File Type: can be BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG or TIF
5. Time between page load and picture taken: in case your internet connection is slow, or your average website takes longer to load or not. The fastest it will go is 15 seconds between each photo (~240/hour ?).
   
   
6. Take an Immediate Picture
7. Batch Process a text file of websites (-> see "TEXT file example" below)

http://www.joellipman.com
    http://www.joellipman.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=509
    http://www.joellipman.com/support/documentation/509-joes-free-website-thumbnailer.html
    http://home.mysite.com|the_name_for_the_thunbmail
    http://www.joellipman.com|screenshot of the best site ever

1. On-Demand: Run this program in the morning, in the afternoon, once, twice, however and whenever YOU want.
2. Unlimited: You are only limited by the resources of your environment setup, in terms of processing and disk space. The program doesn't care what sites you've done or how many times you used it (no audit trail).
3. Client-side: Server solutions take up processing power in order to convert/download these on-the-fly. Use this program to generate the thumbnails and upload the images to your server. This solution means your server will access images in the quickest and most efficient way it knows how.
4. Semi-Portable? can run off a floppy disk/USB but will need an installed version of MS Internet Explorer on the computer it's run. If you think you don't have MSIE but you have Windows XP, it's likely you have it anyway.
5. Open Source: Open to view/modify the source code as long as you attribute credit where it's due. License is GNU General Public License v3 (www.opensource.org/licenses/GPL-3.0).
6. FREE / Gratis Did I not mention this already?
   
   
7. Support Not amazing when my support team consists of me, myself and I. Saying this I'm in discussion with commercial solutions that still haven't answered some of my questions or even raised as issues. I'm not them; add as a comment to this article or email me and that will be the support ticket.
8. Microsoft Windows Only I know, what has the world come to? No Linux/Mac versions as I don't know how to program for these.
9. Not real-time If you need screenshots taken every second of every day or your affiliates will jump down your throat because they changed the "Welcome" word to "Hello" on their site and with extreme squinting, you can distinguish between the two, then this may not be your solution. Otherwise really? Are you Alexa.com? Preview accuracy is accurate to the time you ran the program and generated the thumbnail...
10. Do more? If you have more than one monitor then this isn't an issue, but because the program runs on top of every other window, not even "dual-core" will let you "do more" (eg. run a batch process and read your emails at the same time on the same monitor).

Question
What's the "lastscreenshot.bmp" image for?
Answer:
The program initially takes a picture and saves this as an image file called "lastscreenshot.bmp". It then converts this image into the format with the quality/size that is set in the program options. Consider this file temporary and if you want to delete/rename this and the images folder, the program will just create another one.

Question
How does the thumbnail name generating work?
Answer:
The program loops through the images folder and finds a name that isn't taken (something like "000065.bmp"). It won't overwrite existing pictures. If you are batch processing a text file, you need to separate the website address and the given name with a pipe character ("|" - see "TEXT file example" mentioned earlier). It ignores spaces before and after any text. If you haven't specified a name, then it just reverts to using 6 digit numbers.

Question
Something has happened to my images folder, does it matter?
Answer:
No, the program checks if a folder called "screenshots" exists in the folder this program is run from. If it doesn't see one, it tries to create one. I personally empty that folder after a batch process but no, the program doesn't care.

Question
How can this be 100% FREE?
Answer:
I'm being asked why not charge for this. First of all it's incredibly difficult to charge for a program that integrates other people's code; but it also betrays its advantage over all other limited Website Thumbnail Generator Services that occupy the first 2 pages of Google under so-called "Free" services. It's a combination of three technologies that are already completely free (Open Source) as well, so wouldn't I be charging for someone else's work and breaching the Open Source licence agreements? Also you still need an Internet connection to download the program then allow the program to visit each website, so it'd only be 100% free if your Internet connection was free as well :c)

Question
Why would I want preview screenshots of sites I link to?
Answer:
Apparently it's big business but I fail to see why any business specialising in website thumbnail generator services, puts all its eggs in one basket. Put simply, human readable text is good but little in comparison to pictures and shiny objects. Studies show people more likely to click on an image to an external website then the usual http://theothercompany.com textual link.

Question
Something wrong? Troubleshooting?
Answer:
The program is built with what I call help 2.0. Visit the Help page in the program and it will check a few things to make sure it works on your computer. I've specified that that's all it scans for, it's not interested in your personal details or what you had for breakfast, it's my years as IT support that push me to make software self-analyze in order to reduce support calls in the first place.

Question
How do I ask a question here?
Answer:
Just post a comment, anonymously or as a member, at the bottom of this article. You can post website links but they aren't active for non-registered members of JoelLipman.Com.

Program Interface:
Open URL This opens a webpage for you (well an inputbox for you to type the web address in and then an ok button) in the program. You can then go to Tools > Take a picture...

Open File This will prompt you to open a text file. The text file should be a list of website addresses, each on their own line. The program will confirm that it will begin batch processing, (if more than 20 then it won't list them all), it processes them based on the options you set under "Tools > Options". When it's done it will popup an alert and then try to open the folder containing all the images it just created.

Take a picture Go to Tools > then select "Take a picture". Wait a few seconds (default is 15) for the program to do it's business and a dialog should alert you when it's done. To see the image it created, go to File > and then select "Open Images Folder".

Help If you make changes to the program, you'll need to re-run the Help. The Help will tell you what to correct but it doesn't currently refresh its data until you request the Help page again. It only self-analyzes when the Help page loads, it isn't a persistent check. Just re-load the Help page to get up-to-date data.

Installing There is no setup. Run the EXE program or if you have AutoHotkey installed, just run the AHK file (which if you open in a text editor will show you all the code).

Autohotkey Source Code:
Noteworthy:
Line 88: Specify images folder (currently set to A_ScriptDir but you could put A_WorkingDir and then start it as a shortcut with the working directory specified.

Line 408: MENU TICKS: these don't just tick and untick but also change the global variables at the same time (interface options). Their counterparts in the GUI menu have to exist as well.

Line 653: CaptureScreen(aRect, bCursor, sFileTo, nQuality) --> 3rd-party DO NOT TOUCH (can't help you if you do)

Line 1015: HELP 2.0: Generates a web page but the code before it does the self-analysis.

Help 2.0: Automated Self-Analysis Visit the HELP section in the program if it isn't playing ball. Comments in RED are what you should fix (only if it's broken) and comments in GREEN are what it found to be ok. It currently checks for

1. Enough disk space to store the image screenshots (at least 50Mb = space for about 10 mp3 songs or 5000 pictures)
2. Checks your computer can connect to the Internet (accesses http://news.google.com/)
3. Checks you are a local administrator on your computer (should just need normal user credentials but if you get prompted to run the program as a different user and can't run the program this may be why)
4. Checks the two libraries accompanying this program still exist (cwebpage.dll and gdiplus.dll).

It's flimsy, crude but does what it has to do. The program itself took only about 6 days to make, it was a quick solution to a service that could not be obtained for free or without a lot of work (setting up my web server to capture real-time screenshots of websites? My server is already under enough processing pressure). If your business doesn't need to update its screenshots every second of every day (my top 5 links have not changed their website for the past decade - you can tell) then I don't see why this isn't the better option. I needed a program that generates thumbnails based on a text file list of websites, and it's a one-off on-demand process. I then upload the thumbnails for use by my website.

The combination of these Open Source (FREE) technologies reminds the commercial sector that we were on the Internet long before and that if you want to sell something, it had better be better than the free option. Long Live Open Source!

Tested on:               Windows XP SP3, Windows 7 (both 32-bit)
Tested with:             MS Internet Explorer 7 libraries
System Requirements:     1Ghz 512Mb RAM (just to load IE libraries)
                         (only used ~55Mb RAM on my computer)
                         50Mb minimum disk space (to store pictures)
Program Size:            1,217Kb (fits on a floppy disk)
Setup/Install:           None, it's portable (can run off USB or media)

Tested on:               Windows XP SP3, Windows 7 (both 32-bit)
Tested with:             MS Internet Explorer 7 libraries
System Requirements:     1Ghz 512Mb RAM (just to load IE libraries)
                         (only used ~55Mb RAM on my computer)
                         50Mb minimum disk space (to store pictures)
Program Size:            1,217Kb (fits on a floppy disk)
Setup/Install:           None, it's portable (can run off USB or media)