Thumbnails generation not working

The thumbnail generation service relies on an external service, so I have no control over the generation of thumbnails. That being said, you can always use a different thumbnail generation service and assign the resulting images to your links. There is an option to give priority to locally saved images when present over dynamic thumbnails.

Hi

This is just a suggestion ??

It looks like Thumbshots has discontinued (https://www.thumbshots.com/Support/Articles/tabid/93/EntryID/47/Default.aspx), and Robothumb looks like it hasn’t been updated for a long time. When I switched to Robothumb, it didn’t seem to function too well in pulling in the thumbnails.

Is there any other newer auto thumbnail system that could easily be included in a future update of the plugin?

Many thanks for your help
Trevor.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by ukcw.

If you have a suggestion for a free service that allows for generation of thumbnails with either a PHP API or that supports passing along URLs to their service, I am all ears.

Hi

Thank you for taking the time to respond.

I’m not very technical, and a quick search reveals that there are not many choices for free accounts… I did find https://pagepeeker.com/free-thumbnails/ – but I would have no idea if pageseeker would work for this plugin. I’ve never used the service so I don’t know if it is any good. I guess the other issue is that at any time, any one of these free thumbnail providers could stop offering a free service.

It seems that most auto thumbnail services are now only paid-for services. ??

Many thanks for your help
Trevor.

Hi, thanks for the replies.

Yannick, Is it feasible to add thumbnail generation as feature from the plugin itself? That way you would be independent…

Everything I read about generating thumbnails requires complex code. I have seen some third-party libraries that can be used to do this, but apparently they all use old deprecated rendering engines so the pages don’t look right… This is why I rely on third-party services.

I am but a lone developer making free plugins in his spare time.

Pagepeeker does seem interesting. Will look to integrate it in the next few weeks.

Thank you for your time and effort.

The more relevant question is why did Yannick torture users of this plugin by constantly integrating fly-by-night screenshot providers. I reached out to Yannick over 5 years ago to offer to personally assist him integrating ShrinkTheWeb, the leader in this niche. I followed up on several occasions, but Yannick always said he had no time.

That is not the real reason, though, because integrating STW is quick and easy. Plus, Yannick always took the time (that he didn’t have supposedly) to integrate all of the inferior services.

Ask yourself WHY he would do that. It is NOT in your best interests, as the users of this plugin would have gained far more with a ShrinkTheWeb integration. https://shrinktheweb.com

It didn’t hurt STW at all, but it’s the users of this plugin who lose.

It is very true that I did not integrate STW in Link Library when you last contacted me 4 years ago in 2016. At that time, I was still 2 years away from completing version 6.0 of Link Library, released in June 2018, a major re-write of the plugin. Once that new version was released, finalling introduce a lot of features that users had been requesting for a long time, I spent 6-12 months fixing bugs and making sure that the plugin had feature parity with its predecessor, since all major rewrites tend to introduce issue. And honestly, I did forget about STW somewhere along the way, between my day job where I travel the world and requests from other users.

I will now investigate integration with STW. That being said, can you confirm that users absolutely need to sign up for an account to be get a key and be able to generate thumbnails?

P.S. From an outsider’s perspective, the STW web site does not look more or less professional than any other thumbnail generator. If anything it looks quite dated compared to Thumbshots. The 2016 copyright at the bottom of the main page does not necessarily inspire confidence on the upkeep of the site and its technology, and the stock photo of the girl next to the thumbnails looks very dated. I must also say as a new users that your registration page sounds quite menacing, especially the line that states: ‘I certify that this is my ONLY account, ever, AND I Agree to ShrinkTheWeb’s Terms of Service’. I don’t necessarily love the idea of sending my users to a site with such severe text. I understand you don’t want freeloaders, but still…

P.P.S. I never set out to ‘torture users of this plugin by constantly integrating fly-by-night screenshot providers’. I just prioritized providers that looked modern, worked easily and provided a way to generate thumbnails without needing to create an account.

Is it normal that the only free image size I seem to be able to generate through a free account is 120×90?

The web design is irrelevant. I updated the design back in 2015 but never got around to deploying it. Regardless, no other screenshot provider compared/compares.

I remember now that your reasoning was that you did not want to send users to a service that required registering. Then, a few months later, Thumbshots went under. Then, the next provider you chose went under. Now, another one ceased and several have approached me to buy them out.

Over the next week, I am deploying the updated design that I made back in 2015 and many will probably complain that it looks outdated (since designed almost 5 years ago), but that’s not what is important. Everyone has an opinion on good design and most people do not really know a good design when they see one.

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Yes, registration is still required (as theft of service is a major issue, which also justifies such a harsh policy). I prefer to have a harsh policy rather than go out of business giving away $25,000 USD worth of screenshots every month.

The default size is 120×90. It is required to send size parameters to get other sizes. There are six(6) default sizes available for free accounts. The pricing model will be updated with this 2015 update and will include more of the features in the free account, with lower pricing across the board for premium accounts.

Really? I mean, really? Are we reproaching the author for not integrating our service? A free plugin and a free/paid service!

Sorry for interfering, Yannick, but I felt I had to. I’ve been using your plugin for a few weeks now and have even modded it a bit to fit my needs, but can’t say nothing but thanks for the work and thanks for the active support.

@fitoma It’s no skin off my back if the author chooses not to integrate our service, sending a bunch of free users (most of which will never need to upgrade). However, YES, I am not above calling people out when they avoid supporting the real deal, like ShrinkTheWeb. I pushed Amazon Web Services out of the screenshot market back in 2008/2009 and spent a fortune to provide the best service over the past decade. I’ve learned that it is sometimes necessary to point out better alternatives, when the masses may not be aware that they struggle for no reason.

The Shrink The Web and PagePeeker services have been interegrated in the latest version of Link Library.

Shrink the web requires an account to be created, free or paid, to use their service.

Pagepeeker can work without any account or with a paid account to remove their logo from the corner of the thumbnails. Please have a look at these new providers and let me know if you run into any issues with the new functionality.

I left thumbshots in place, last in the list, in case the service still worked for some.