Currently we're figuring out whether we can autogenerate screenshots of each A/B Test. These screenshots can later be used to generate some sort of report to the end client with screenshots of the variants and the results.
Of course a great idea, but we're a bit stuck in how to do this.
Requirements:
Browser incompatibility (and preferrable rendered by servercode and not by clientside code)
No usage of external webservices, because we want to have as less dependencies in our package as possible
No usage of an external server (some sort of screenshot rendering webserver) because of the same reason.
Must work on Umbraco Cloud
We've looked into the Selenium NuGet-package (https://www.nuget.org/packages/Selenium.WebDriver.ChromeDriver/), but that requires Chrome on the server and that will not work on Umbraco Cloud for example.
We use ABCpdf. It renders HTML by using some sort of chrome in a Dll solution. That works on cloud. If it can render a PDF so I think you should be able to render a image the same way?
thanks for your answer! We looked around but none of the found packages fulfilled our requirements unfortunately.
For now we deprioritized on our backlog. I think we end up one time in the future with a seperate server instance generating these screenshots. Something like screenshots.umarketingsuite.com. The installed package sends a request to that server; the server spiders your url; generates a screenshot and sends it back to the website/package.
Drawbacks of that approach are:
We have a dependency in the package on a server that we need to keep up and running. Now and also in ten years :S
It cannot be used on internal websites or websites behind a login (without creating some sort of unwanted security hack in the package)
How do we handle rendering different variants for this screenshot-server, but not give that opportunity to script kiddies, website visitors, etcetera...
I think we will manage all these drawbacks, but for now we have but in on a lower priority in our backlog.
Thanks for reporting back though! Have a great friday,
Screenshot rendering
Hi brilliant Umbraco community,
Currently we're figuring out whether we can autogenerate screenshots of each A/B Test. These screenshots can later be used to generate some sort of report to the end client with screenshots of the variants and the results.
Of course a great idea, but we're a bit stuck in how to do this.
Requirements:
We've looked into the Selenium NuGet-package (https://www.nuget.org/packages/Selenium.WebDriver.ChromeDriver/), but that requires Chrome on the server and that will not work on Umbraco Cloud for example.
Anyone any good ideas / experience?
Thank you already!
Clueless Jeffrey
How about Puppeteer Sharp? Might work for you?
We use ABCpdf. It renders HTML by using some sort of chrome in a Dll solution. That works on cloud. If it can render a PDF so I think you should be able to render a image the same way?
Thanks guys, we will check this out next week!
I found out Puppeteer Sharp doesn't work on Azure WebApps and thus Umbraco Cloud. The work-around is to use an Azure Function.
Have you looked into this and made any progress Jeffrey?
Hi Stefan,
thanks for your answer! We looked around but none of the found packages fulfilled our requirements unfortunately.
For now we deprioritized on our backlog. I think we end up one time in the future with a seperate server instance generating these screenshots. Something like screenshots.umarketingsuite.com. The installed package sends a request to that server; the server spiders your url; generates a screenshot and sends it back to the website/package.
Drawbacks of that approach are:
I think we will manage all these drawbacks, but for now we have but in on a lower priority in our backlog.
Thanks for reporting back though! Have a great friday,
Jeffrey Schoemaker
is working on a reply...