Question

I would like to retrieve a Webpage thumbnail by URL programmatically.

Done some searching and came up with several solutions:

1. using Swing (JEditorPane) – but as I understand & correct me if I’m wrong, it’s not possible to use swing with Android app.
2. using a third party site with api services, like thumbalizr.com – prefer not to use that as it watermarks the thumbnail unless I pay (my app is free).
3. Don’t know if it’s possible but maybe use the android browser function for that? maybe go to the URL in hidden way while activity shows only a progress bar? 🙂

Can anyone maybe offer something that works? maybe something more native?

Appreciate any direction!

Answer 1

good question…it’s probably not good enough, but you can get a site’s favicon from the web history via android.webkit.WebHistoryItem’s getFavicon() call:
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/webkit/WebHistoryItem.html
amb