So Paul Hammond created webkit2png which is a lovely little command-line script for a Mac that goes and grabs a full screenshot of a web-page – full length on the page. It can also do a variety of other whatsits and hoojis which are really cool. So what I want someone to do now is to make a little app that sits your Mac which you can stick your remaindered linkloggery into – a little app that:
- Is templatable;
- Posts the links to del.icio.us and any other link aggregation place (damned if I’m going to leave all my lovely posts on someone else’s system without hooking into mine);
- Grabs a screenshot of the page concerned (can be overwritten if you’re linking to something random);
- Posts the whole she-bang to your linklog (complete with lovely little screencap) via the various weblog APIs;
- If someone could make it some kind of plug-in for my browser or make it triggerable via an AppleScript or something, that would be nice too.
To be honest, I’m not sure this is quite what I want, but it’s becoming clear to me that the area of the linklog is in enormous need of some refactoring and rationalisation work. I don’t really think it’ll sort itself out until one or more of the weblog companies actually puts in some templates and structures designed to support it directly, but I’m not sure how likely that is to happen…
7 replies on “Off the top of my head: linklog refactoring required…”
scribbling.net does something like you suggest. I’m not sure if she has completely automated the process or not, but you might want to inquire with her.
I’ve actually written a Cocoa application for posting to del.icio.us and searching your posts, which you might be interested in checking out:
http://www.scifihifi.com/cocoalicious/
I could theoretically add the features you’re talking about to that…
Not quite to the level of what you’re talking about, Tom, but my little script couples thumbshots.org and del.icio.us.
http://scribbling.net/screenshots-for-your-linklog
http://dev.upian.com/hotlinks/ used to do something just like this, but it looks like the screenshot part of their site is down temporarily.
I looked at del.icou.us as well but couldn’t see an easy way to pull it into my site with the look *I* want, currently I’m still using a separate Blogger blog for my miniblog.
Why screenshot? Why not simpy Furl it since that captures both the url, any metadata and most importantly the webpage in question and archives it.
I like del.ico.us’s focus on the link but I think Furl also does the capture which sounds like what you’re asking for. Plus they have a nice REST api I believe
Linkin’ logs due for some rethinking
At plasticbag.org Tom Coates has some ideas for how link logs should work in this day and age: So Paul Hammond created webkit2png which is a lovely little command-line script for a Mac that goes and grabs a full screenshot of a web-page – full length o…