New Stack Request – Website Thumbnail Embed Stack

I have approached a few of the major stack developers about this idea, but all were in the middle of another project or wanted to charge me full development charges for making a custom stack.

I don’t think I would be the only one interested in this - so I figure I throw it out to the Community:

I would love to have a simple stack that basically functions like Facebook or ScoopIt does– Paste in the URL and it builds a small Thumbnail from either the whole page, or a selectable graphic on the page, and turns the entire div into a link.

I would use this as for LaunchPad pages, Blog Side Bars- people I follow, external resource in the footer, referral/reciprocative links, etc.

That would be neat. I could use it to simplify some processes using Ember to make a screenshot and then adding the links to them. And it would be up-to-date every time.

Developers: Take my money!

Evidently I wasn’t approached as a major developer :cry:

I could have told you that I already have a new stack close to completion that will do this. It’s going to be released through RWExtras.com

If you look at the ThemeFlood theme product pages you will see a live banner at the top that creates miniaturised previews of the themes, running on a smartphone, tablet and desktop computer. It’s simply 3 iFrames with CSS transforms applied - to scale the webpage down to the desired size. I’ve had it running for a couple of years and it works really well. Retina display optimised too.

Loads of people have asked me how I accomplished it and if they can buy something similar, hence why I built the LiveThumbs stack. The LiveThumbs stack will do something very similar - paste in the URL and it will create a small snapshot of the live webpage (complete with any animations) and layer a link over the top to make the whole thing clickable.

7 Likes

@willwood, that is awesome!

I look forward to purchasing a copy.

1 Like

To quote the famous Brandon:

:slight_smile:

1 Like

re: a few of the major developers
You certainly would be on the list… but I got discouraged and you are in the W’s :grin:

Looking forward to the release! Let me know if you need a beta tester!

2 Likes

It’s working well for me. For the most part the stack is done, except I’ve not finished the browser testing yet or reviewed the documentation.

And to answer the earlier point, each thumbnail becomes a link to the page you are embedding. It is possible to apply custom attributes to the link. So if you’re using one of my themes with lightbox support, it would be feasible to have the destination page open inside a larger iFrame, inside a responsive lightbox. Or use it in conjunction with a stack like TopBox.

If you want to test it, you can email me to request a copy. I do not currently have details of release dates or final pricing.

10 Likes

Looks great! Looking forward to the release Will.

I’ve been doing this for some time by using Paparazzi (https://derailer.org/paparazzi/) to generate a thumbnail of the website and then using that as a link in RW. Maybe that will help you.

Looking forward to this clever new stack.

Will: Looks great! I’m looking forward to using this stack once it’s released.