Client-side Rendering Engine, Take 1

Since two days ago, I have been recreating the Google Feedback Tool. It is a pretty big challenge. One of the key features is taking screenshots of the page on which is being given feedback.

When Elliott Sprehn, the tech lead behind the Google Feedback Tool, commented on my previous post saying that Google developed their own client-side rendering engine which does not require Flash or ActiveX components, my jaw dropped all the way down to the floor from the respect. I thought that nobody would be that crazy to write one of those. However, Google did and it’s amazingly accurate. (Good job!)

Not that I want to prove that I’m as good as Google is (which I’m not), I’m trying to develop one of those rendering engines on my own and it’s been a great deal of pain so far and I haven’t had the balls to check the solution in other browsers than Chrome. Here is how it snapshot the Last.fm profile of the band The Cinematics.

Even though there are several horrible bugs and it ignores a lot of CSS properties, when I look at the fact that it took me only a few hours, I find the result rather impressive :-)