Given a URL, we would like to get back a bitmap representation of what
that Web page would look like; the returned graphic should be of a
settable size.  As if you did a Print Screen, and then shrank the
image down and saved it as GIF or JPG.

We've already found MANY techniques on Google that accomplish this,
but none quite fit the model we want to use.  We're looking for a
solution with the following properties:

1: We are Java programmers.  The solution should be completely in
Java.  Some techniques talk about Windows-specific DLLs or print
drivers, and we do not want that.
2: The tools / libraries should be generally available as open source,
so we do not have to pay a per server licensing fee.
3: The process should run unattended, and preferably without needing
to pop-up a browser window for each page.  It should be able to handle
one page after another, in other words given a list of urls, produce a
list of bitmaps.
4: It would be nice if there was a Java library out there that already
did all of these together, or at least the render/bitmap part, vs.
having to stitch together a half dozen unrelated libraries.
5: I would also be nice if the system was not tripped up by Java
Script, redirects, popups, etc.
6: It would be nice if the JVM required was 1.3 or earlier.

There's got be a library out there that does this... but with all the
clutter we haven't found it yet.

Thanks

I had always wondered how whois.sc made their thumbnails. It turns out
that there's at least one public-domain Python script that works with
Mozilla to produced miniaturized window captures for given URLs.

Burtonini: Web Page Thumbnails
http://www.burtonini.com/blog/computers/mozilla-thumbnail-20040614.xhtml

Burtonini: Ross Burton's hacked copy of Matt Biddulph's thumbnail maker
http://www.burtonini.com/computing/screenshot-tng.py

I'm afraid I haven't spotted any Java solutions. The Python script
isn't very long, however, so if you have a Java library that talks to
the window manager, I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult to roll
your own.

leapinglizard

Feel free to have a look at the following options of Java libraries,
some of them suit your needs

http://www.geocities.com/marcoschmidt.geo/java-image-coding.html