There and Back Again

The last few weeks have seen a number of new features added to WebThumb. These changes have been little things like a new usage graph on the website to more exciting thing like excerpts and really tall snapshots.

Excerpts

With thumbnail excerpts you can get an image from visible part of the webpage. This is on by default and grabs a 400×150 image from the top left corner of the website where most people’s logos are. Using the API you can specify an excerpt from anywhere. Note that if you take a excerpt that is larger then 800 wide or 600 tall the request will cost an extra credit.

API example of customizing an excerpt

    apikeyhere
    
        http://blog.joshuaeichorn.com
        
            0
            15
            1024
            120
        
    

Sample Output

API example of fetching an excerpt

    apikeyhere
    
        wt46fd34663e680
        excerpt
    

Tall thumbs

The API has been updated allowing you to request thumbnails up to 2048 pixels high. This value could be increased in the future if there is demand. All thumbnail requests over 1024 pixel cost 2 credits. Note that once you use any 2 credit feature (large excerpt, tall thumbnail, full size output) you can use the others for free.

To make a tall thumbnail you just request set a large height in your request.
Example

    apikeyhere
    
        blog.joshuaeichorn.com
        2048
    

Example Output

Full size snapshots

Full size snapshots aren’t a new feature, but they haven’t really been advertised. All you have to do is a fullthumb tag to your request and you’ll get an image that is the full size of the browser. Fullthumb requests cost 2 credits.

Example fullthumb request

    apikeyhere
    
        webthumb.bluga.net
        1
    

Sample Output

Other Stuff

• Image resizing on thumbnails has been updated so if you pick non-standard dimensions for the browser you’ll get back thumbnails with the same height/width ratio.
• The result from a request now includes the credit cost, so you can tell if you were charged for a fullthumb etc.
• Bulk rates are available for people making over 2500 requests a day, contact me to find out rates.
• Older thumbnails are being deleted from the system, the length of time that thumbnail are stored will decrease as webthumb usage continues to increase but it shouldn’t go below 48 hours.
• A tool for testing the API has been added, it lets you make API requests to learn the API without doing any setup.