How To Generate Thumbnail of HTML Pages

I was just adding my site on Alexa and in some minutes Alexa generated a thumbnail of my html site. And again it was same with blog catelog. So I thought is there any PHP code that crawled the site and generates its image thumb? After a lots of research I came out with these. Remember, this only works in windows server.
There is one thing called IECapt.exe ( A Internet Explorer Web Page Rendering Capture Utility). This renders the page and generate thumbnail of it. You can download it from IECapt.exe. And to run that through php here’s the code.

This is the class file that generates thumb images from the output of IECapt.exe. Save it as image.class.php

<?php

class Thumb {

  var $save_to_file = true;
  var $image_type = -1;
  var $quality = 100;
  var $max_x = 100;
  var $max_y = 100;
  var $cut_x = 0;
  var $cut_y = 0;

  function SaveImage($im, $filename) {

    $res = null;

    // ImageGIF is not included into some GD2 releases, so it might not work
    // output png if gifs are not supported
    if(($this->image_type == 1)  && !function_exists('imagegif')) $this->image_type = 3;

    switch ($this->image_type) {
      case 1:
        if ($this->save_to_file) {
          $res = ImageGIF($im,$filename);
        }
        else {
          header("Content-type: image/gif");
          $res = ImageGIF($im);
        }
        break;
      case 2:
        if ($this->save_to_file) {
          $res = ImageJPEG($im,$filename,$this->quality);
        }
        else {
          header("Content-type: image/jpeg");
          $res = ImageJPEG($im,'',$this->quality);
        }
        break;
      case 3:
        if ($this->save_to_file) {
          $res = ImagePNG($im,$filename);
        }
        else {
          header("Content-type: image/png");
          $res = ImagePNG($im,'',$this->quality);
        }
        break;
    }

    return $res;

  }

  function ImageCreateFromType($type,$filename) {
   $im = null;
   switch ($type) {
     case 1:
       $im = ImageCreateFromGif($filename);
       break;
     case 2:
       $im = ImageCreateFromJpeg($filename);
       break;
     case 3:
       $im = ImageCreateFromPNG($filename);
       break;
    }
    return $im;
  }

  // generate thumb from image and save it
  function GenerateThumbFile($from_name, $to_name) {

    // get source image size (width/height/type)
    // orig_img_type 1 = GIF, 2 = JPG, 3 = PNG
    list($orig_x, $orig_y, $orig_img_type, $img_sizes) = GetImageSize($from_name);

    // cut image if specified by user
    if ($this->cut_x > 0) $orig_x = min($this->cut_x, $orig_x);
    if ($this->cut_y > 0) $orig_y = min($this->cut_y, $orig_y);

    // should we override thumb image type?
    $this->image_type = ($this->image_type != -1 ? $this->image_type : $orig_img_type);

    // check for allowed image types
    if ($orig_img_type < 1 or $orig_img_type > 3) die("Image type not supported");

    if ($orig_x > $this->max_x or $orig_y > $this->max_y) {

      // resize
      $per_x = $orig_x / $this->max_x;
      $per_y = $orig_y / $this->max_y;
      if ($per_y > $per_x) {
        $this->max_x = $orig_x / $per_y;
      }
      else {
        $this->max_y = $orig_y / $per_x;
      }

    }
    else {
      // keep original sizes, i.e. just copy
      if ($this->save_to_file) {
        @copy($from_name, $to_name);
      }
      else {
        switch ($this->image_type) {
          case 1:
              header("Content-type: image/gif");
              include($from_name);
            break;
          case 2:
              header("Content-type: image/jpeg");
              include($from_name);
            break;
          case 3:
              header("Content-type: image/png");
              include($from_name);
            break;
        }
      }
      return;
    }

    if ($this->image_type == 1) {
      // should use this function for gifs (gifs are palette images)
      $ni = imagecreate($this->max_x, $this->max_y);
    }
    else {
      // Create a new true color image
      $ni = ImageCreateTrueColor($this->max_x,$this->max_y);
    }

    // Fill image with white background (255,255,255)
    $white = imagecolorallocate($ni, 255, 255, 255);
    imagefilledrectangle( $ni, 0, 0, $this->max_x, $this->max_y, $white);
    // Create a new image from source file
    $im = $this->ImageCreateFromType($orig_img_type,$from_name);
    // Copy the palette from one image to another
    imagepalettecopy($ni,$im);
    // Copy and resize part of an image with resampling
    imagecopyresampled(
      $ni, $im,             // destination, source
      0, 0, 0, 0,           // dstX, dstY, srcX, srcY
      $this->max_x, $this->max_y,       // dstW, dstH
      $orig_x, $orig_y);    // srcW, srcH

    // save thumb file
    $this->SaveImage($ni, $to_name);
  }

}

?>

Here’s the code to run it. Save this as webthumb.php.

<?php
###############################################################
# Website Thumbnail Image Generator
###############################################################
# Subesh Pokhrel. Visit  http://www.subesh.com.np
###############################################################
#
# REQUIREMENTS:
# PHP 4.0.6 and GD 2.0.1 or later
# May not work with GIFs if GD2 library installed on your server
# does not support GIF functions in full
#
# Parameters that can be passed via url (if not passed will be used values which are set below):
# url - url of the target website
# x - max width
# y - max height
# q - quality (applicable only to JPG, 1 to 100, 100 - best)
#
# Sample usage:
# 1. webthumb.php?url=http://www.microsoft.com
# 2. Set maximum thumbnail size to 150
#    webthumb.php?url=http://www.thumbnails.com&x=150&y=150
###############################################################

// Folder to save all thumbnails.
// Must end with slash!!!
$thumbnails_folder = 'C:/xampp/htdocs/thumbdirectory';

// thumbnails expiration time in minutes
$cache_expire_time = 60;

// quality (for jpeg only)
$image_quality = 100;

// resulting image type (1 = GIF, 2 = JPG, 3 = PNG)
$image_type = 3;

// maximum thumb side size
$max_x = 100;
$max_y = 100;

// If not equal 0 then cut original image size before resizing (in pixels).
// Long page will have bad thumbnail, its better to cut page length first.
$cut_x = 0;
$cut_y = 1024;

###############################################################################
# END OF SETTINGS. DO NOT EDIT BELOW
###############################################################################

if (isset($_REQUEST['url'])) {
  $website_url = $_REQUEST['url'];
}
else {
  die("Site URL must be specified.");
}

if ($image_type == 1) $output_format = 'gif';
if ($image_type == 2) $output_format = 'jpg';
if ($image_type == 3) $output_format = 'png';

$website_url_md5 = md5($website_url);

$cached_filename = $thumbnails_folder . $website_url_md5 . '.' . $output_format;

// See if we have cached website screenshot image (to minimize server load)
if (!file_exists($cached_filename)
|| filemtime ($cached_filename) + $cache_expire_time * 60 < time() ) {

  // Get website image and save it on the server.
  @exec('IECapt.exe ' . escapeshellarg($website_url) . ' ' . escapeshellarg($cached_filename));

} // if (!file_exists

if (!file_exists($cached_filename)) {
  die("Thumbnail Generation Error. Thumbnail not created.");
}

// create class instance
include("image.class.php");
$img = new Thumb;

// get parameters
$img->image_type   = $image_type;
$img->quality      = isset($_REQUEST['q']) ? intval($_REQUEST['q']) : $image_quality;
$img->max_x        = isset($_REQUEST['x']) ? intval($_REQUEST['x']) : $max_x;
$img->max_y        = isset($_REQUEST['y']) ? intval($_REQUEST['y']) : $max_y;
$img->save_to_file = false;
$img->cut_x        = $cut_x;
$img->cut_y        = $cut_y;

// generate thumbnail and show it
$img->GenerateThumbFile($cached_filename, '');

?>

The codes are self explanatory. Just be sure you have placed all the three one one folder or managed the path accordingly.