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Show HN: Rate my project browshot.com

browshot.com

6 pointsjusob11 comments

Good Luck!

I really like the idea of people testing stuff on small screens. I used an EEE pc 701 for a few years, and that has a tiny screen.

Two tiny nitpicks: >A service to easily make screenshots of web pages in any screen size, as any device: iPhone©, iPad©, Android©, Nook©, PC, etc. Full Flash, JavaScript, CSS, & HTML5 support.

This confused me until I realised what you're doing. It's not important, but maybe a copy editor could snap it up a bit?

Also, your home button overlays "Browshot" title. (http://imgur.com/iHOsZ)

Thank you. I do need to work on the message on the home page. What resolution did you have when you took the screenshot?

There is still a lot of work to do, but I finally launched a service to automate screenshots of websites. I could not find a service that offer reliable screenshots (i.e. make sure the page is fully loaded) in a reliable amount of time.

I agree with the comment about the copy.

You need to know instantly what your site does.

It is really about the screenshots or is it about testing across different browsers/devices?

I thinking testing is the key word.

I think I have not yet decided what I want the service to do. When I started, I was looking at users who need a high volume of screenshots. I thought of the dashboard as a quick and easy test to try the service, before using the API for the "real" work. Then I started to think about testing on many different devices, with low volumes. I guess I need to make a decision.

I think this looks promising. Does it handle custom fonts? I had a problem with rendering custom fonts with the hack job of a screenshot app I'd built for myself. Best of luck to you though!

Are you taling about CSS3 fonts: http://www.designcourse.com/articles/1/css/55-CSS-Custom-Fon... If so, this will work.

Are you running an real/virtual farm of Nooks and iPads? Or are you spoofing the browser agent and mimicking the screen resolution? Welcome to the neighborhood!

These are not real devices, but it is more than spoofing the user agent and the resolution. For example, for the iPad, I use a mobile browser, which does the same scaling as the real device amongst other things, enable/disable features or behaviors, etc.

Julien, can you say something about the company itself? Or if it's just your personal side project - state that. I can't find any info on the website. (Note: this fact might be discouraging for more serious customers.)

Are you in any way related to the Yandex company, apart from using the Highlight script hosted on their site?

BTW, I'm really happy you're launching this product. I've done some research on good screenshot services over a year ago and the results weren't encouraging. Eventually I settled for these German guys: http://www.websitethumbnail.de/

This is a personal project, but I don't really what to highlight this :-) http://www.websitethumbnail.de/ is indeed the best competitor I found, but they still have many limitations (like max resolution 1024x768).

I can work with you if you're serious about trying a new service. I can give you enough free credits to fully test browshot.com. Send me an e-mail to julien@browshot.com with the details of what you're looking for, and what you need to validate the service.

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