How to take screenshot of current window using PHP?

Question

I am trying to prepare desktop application using PHP Nightrain. I want to take screen shot of open window after every 10 seconds. I tried using html2canvas but it is taking screen shot of application open page. If I will open Microsoft word and work inside it that time i want screen shot of it using PHP. Is it possible using PHP? And one more thing I want to make desktop application using PHP which is OS compatible.

No, it is not possible unless the PHP code is running on the client's machine (not likely, as PHP usually runs server-side). What you are attempting is a serious privacy issue, which is probably why no such API exists. The only way you could do this would be via browser extensions and/or NSAPI/PPAPI/ActiveX applets. — Alexander O'Mara, Jul 20 '15 at 05:26
Using PHP Nightrain application will run like desktop application and it is not running inside browser. If I run exe file of PHP Nightrain then it opens one window. — Kinjal Modi, Jul 20 '15 at 05:51
In that case, if Nightrain does not have such an API, you could probably call external executables using `shell_exec`, etc. OS X has a built-in command for this. IDK about other operating systems. — Alexander O'Mara, Jul 20 '15 at 05:55

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 20 '15 at 05:37

This cannot be done with php alone. You will need javascript to take the screenshot, convert it into a string and send it via ajax to a php script which would then save the content.

To do that you can use this library http://html2canvas.hertzen.com/. Now the magic happens in the next few lines of code:

// an example html page
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8/jquery.min.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="./javascripts/html2canvas.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript">
        $(document).ready(function(){
            $('#screenshot').on('click', function(e){
                e.preventDefault();
                html2canvas($('body'), {
                    onrendered: function(canvas){
                        var imgString = canvas.toDataURL();
                        window.open(imgString);
                        $.ajax({
                            url: '',
                            type: 'POST',
                            data: {
                                file: imgString
                            },
                            success: function(response){
                                //alert('Everything works fine.');
                            },
                            error: function(response){
                                //alert('Server response error.');
                            }
                        });
                    }
                });
            });
        });
    </script>
</head>
<body>

As far as the IE 7 & 8 support goes - google (and other giant web sites) have stated to support up to 1 version back from the latest. So, if the current version is 10, they will only support 9 and 10. I believe this is a good practice and I'm using it with my clients as well. IE < 8 is a big pain in the ... to be working with if you're developing advanced web pages. If your client still insists having IE 7 & 8 support, you may want to checkout Modernizr and html5shiv which may be able to help you bring the html5 support to IE.

"I tried using html2canvas but it is taking screen shot of application open page. If I will open Microsoft word and work inside it that time i want screen shot of it using PHP." — Alexander O'Mara, Jul 20 '15 at 05:42
I have tried it using html2canvas but it is taking the running page of application. I want PHP application will run after every 10 seconds and take screen shot of whenever i work in the system. — Kinjal Modi, Jul 20 '15 at 05:43

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:58

0

Will only work on servers, check how about this:

<?php
// capture the screen
$img = imagegrabscreen();
imagepng($img, 'screenshot.png');
?>

OR

<?php
// Capture the browser window
$Browser = new COM('InternetExplorer.Application');
$Browserhandle = $Browser->HWND;
$Browser->Visible = true;
$Browser->Fullscreen = true;
$Browser->Navigate('http://www.stackoverflow.com');

while($Browser->Busy){
  com_message_pump(4000);
}

$img = imagegrabwindow($Browserhandle, 0);
$Browser->Quit();
imagepng($img, 'screenshot.png');
?>

Searching is useful for a fast answer ;)

Website screenshots using PHP

edited May 23 '17 at 11:58

Community

1
1

answered Jul 20 '15 at 05:58

Bhavin Solanki

4,740
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It captures browser window but I want to capture system open window. This works for windows only. – Kinjal Modi Jul 20 '15 at 06:01

How to take screenshot of current window using PHP?

2 Answers2