PeepJS is a simple node module to turn a URL into a screenshot, and allows the generation of thumbnails. It is currently an early version but it does work - more flexibility will come. It uses ES6 Promises to create an asynchronous request.

I created this as I required this functionality in another project, and I thought it would be a good learning opportunity to create the functionality myself to get a feel for how modules are made. It also beats paying monthly for an API to do the work!

Prerequisites

C++11 compatible compiler such as gcc 4.8+, clang 3.0+ or MSVC 2013+

node-gyp

PhantomJS

Installation

Install via npm.

$ npm install PeepJS

Usage / Example

//Require the module and create an instance of the Peep class.
var Peep = require('PeepJS');
var peeper = new Peep();

//Use the takeScreenshot method to grab a screenshot.
peeper.takeScreenshot("http://google.com", "./output/", ".gif")
  .then(screenshot => {
    //Screenshot is an object with path to screenshot and thumbnail
    console.log(screenshot);
  });

Class: Peep

new Peep({options})

Creates a new Peep instance. All options are currently optional.

show Boolean - Whether or not the electron window used to take the screenshot appears visually. Default is false.

loud Boolean - Debug/Dev option. Enables console logging for Peep. Defaults to false for no logging.

width Integer - Full screenshot's width in pixels. Default is 800.

height Integer - Full screenshot's height in pixels. Default is 600.

useContentSize Boolean - Boolean - The width and height would be used as web page's size, which means the actual window's size will include window frame's size and be slightly larger. Default is false.

enableLargerThanScreen Boolean - Enable the window to be resized larger than screen. Default is false.

zoomFactor Number - The default zoom factor of the page, 2.0 is 200%. Default is 0.75 Worth adjusting if can't fit content in screenshot.

showImages Boolean - Whether images should show in the screenshots. Default is true.

showScrollbars Boolean - Whether there should be scrollbars in the screenshot. Default is false.

centered Boolean - Horizontally center the screenshot if the page does not fit. Default is false.

fullsizeOnly Boolean - Only output a fullsize image. Default is false. Do not use with thumbnailOnly.

thumbnailOnly Boolean - Only output a thumbnail image. Default is false. Still temporarily creates a fullsize image, but will be removed.

fullsizePrefix String - Change the prefix at the start of the output filename. Example: newprefix_google.com.png. Default is full_. Can be used to put output in a further subdirectory. Example: fullsize/full_. Recommended: Check notes section below.

thumbnailPrefix String - Change the prefix at the start of the output filename. Example: newprefix_google.com.png. Default is thumb_. Can be used to put output in a further subdirectory. Example: thumbnails/thumb_. Recommended: Check notes section below.

thumbSize Number - The factor at which your thumbnail will be scaled down to, 0.25 is 25%. Default is 0.25.

thumbWidth Integer - Exact width of thumbnail output in pixels. Overwrites thumbSize when considering width. Falls back to thumbSize.

thumbHeight Integer - Exact height of thumbnail output in pixels. Overwrites thumbSize when considering height. Falls back to thumbSize.

Peep.takeScreenshot(url, output_dir, filetype)

url String - Make sure to include the http:// For example: http://google.com.

output_dir String - Make sure to include a / after the directory name. For example: ./output/

filetype String - Use one of: .png .jpg .gif

Returns a promise with error handling at .catch() and when successful an object containing paths to the screenshot and thumbnail at .then(). For example:

{
    fullsize: './output/full_google.com.png',
    thumb: './output/thumb_google.com.png'
}

Notes (Important!)

- Make sure your output directory already exists! This is important! Same goes for if you use fullsizePrefix or thumbnailPrefix to make usage of subdirectories - the subdirectories must already exist!

• Screenshots are saved using the url as part of the filename, prefixed with either full_ or thumb_.
• Screenshots from the same domain will currently overwrite. This means full_google.com.png would get overwrote by a http://google.com/images screenshot request.