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The Catch-22: set of folks with the skills to use a security token to call an API and archive screen dumps for visual regression testing, roughly equals the one

by indescions_2017 9y ago

The Catch-22: set of folks with the skills to use a security token to call an API and archive screen dumps for visual regression testing, roughly equals the one that already knows how to automate via headless Chrome ;) laktek, I'd be interested in hearing how you would turn this into a consumer product? For myself, I'd like an API that wraps devtools for remote debugging (on users machines). Am able to extract useful info via performance counters and computed styles. But the entire process can be made much more friendly I imagine. Good luck, and keep building!

laktek 9y ago
Thanks for the comment! So both Screen.rip and Page.REST are my way of validating the market. I don't expect these API services to be the end product (but rather the building blocks for bigger ideas). However, APIs do seem to arouse curiosity among people. Lot of the emails I've been getting follows the theme of "I saw your API and was wondering how we can use to solve X". This way I get a more focused set of real problems (and their potential value), rather than I try to hypothesis problem spaces. PS: Another cool thing about releasing API first is I can start charging people sooner, rather than having to wait till I build a finished product. It helps since I'm bootstrapping.
- davidpelayo 9y ago
  Now, the question is, did you already charged anyone with these APIs? Do yo want to share any concrete experience since you are bootstrapping?
  - laktek 9y ago
    Yes, I blogged about it on the experience of releasing Page.REST https://www.laktek.com/what-i-learned-from-building-pagerest/ https://www.laktek.com/what-i-learned-from-building-pagerest... (and people have purchased Screen.rip tokens in the last hour or so :))
- rokhayakebe 9y ago
  $7 is cheap imo. I paid for a service similar to yours for years. Their price point was close to 10 times as high as yours, yet I happily paid my monthly subscription. I love this.
  - jotto 9y ago
    $7 for 10,000 is not that cheap ($0.0007 per screenshot). I'm charging $0.000365 per screenshot and I thought that was on the higher end. https://www.prerender.cloud/docs/api https://www.prerender.cloud/docs/api curl http://service.prerender.cloud/screenshot/https://google.com/ > out.jpg
    - rokhayakebe 9y ago
      I paid 10 times more for years happily.
laktek 9y ago
And I'm interested to talk more about remote debugging use case. Feel free to drop me a DM on Twitter (@laktek) :)
davidpelayo 9y ago
Let me check if I understood correctly. As the same way you may use TeamViewer for remote desktop control, you would like to perform remote debugging on user browser devtools? Could you drop what's the use case you are imagining in a real scenario? Great comment. Thanks.
- indescions_2017 9y ago
  Real world example would be an "io game". Like slither.io. I need full client stats: CPU and GPU capabilities, rendering and network performance. Instrumenting in javascript while game is max'ed out during runtime is less than ideal ;)
turtlebits 9y ago
I disagree. $7 is extremely cheap. I really like that it's per use and not a monthly charge. I tried dabbling with [chromeless](https://github.com/graphcool/chromeless https://github.com/graphcool/chromeless) and wasted a bunch of time on some random error that I eventually found out was a bug. If I had to do it myself I'd use Docker + Selenium, but I'd definitely give this a shot first.
justinph 9y ago
I've just done something like this recently and it's not as easy as you might think. It is easy to make a thing happen quickly with a few lines of code, but making it reliable and repeatable is much more time consuming. This looks like very favorable pricing if you don't need certain features. But, if you need support for setting: location, turning on flash, proxies, and https://urlbox.io/ https://urlbox.io/ is also very useful.
- mkoryak 9y ago
  flash? for screenshots taken at night?
csomar 9y ago
I did this before (manual screenshooting). It'll take 1-2 weeks of full dev work. If you are looking for a quick solution, $7 is less than what I pay at starbucks.
- laktek 9y ago
  I call this the coffee profitable :) First step to Ramen profitability.
amclennon 9y ago
I've been working on something similar with http://www.butterflyfx.io http://www.butterflyfx.io that captures information beyond a screenshot. It's still a work in progress, however.

laktek 9y ago

Thanks for the comment! So both Screen.rip and Page.REST are my way of validating the market. I don't expect these API services to be the end product (but rather the building blocks for bigger ideas). However, APIs do seem to arouse curiosity among people. Lot of the emails I've been getting follows the theme of "I saw your API and was wondering how we can use to solve X". This way I get a more focused set of real problems (and their potential value), rather than I try to hypothesis problem spaces. PS: Another cool thing about releasing API first is I can start charging people sooner, rather than having to wait till I build a finished product. It helps since I'm bootstrapping.

davidpelayo 9y ago
Now, the question is, did you already charged anyone with these APIs? Do yo want to share any concrete experience since you are bootstrapping?
- laktek 9y ago
  Yes, I blogged about it on the experience of releasing Page.REST https://www.laktek.com/what-i-learned-from-building-pagerest/ https://www.laktek.com/what-i-learned-from-building-pagerest... (and people have purchased Screen.rip tokens in the last hour or so :))
rokhayakebe 9y ago
$7 is cheap imo. I paid for a service similar to yours for years. Their price point was close to 10 times as high as yours, yet I happily paid my monthly subscription. I love this.
- jotto 9y ago
  $7 for 10,000 is not that cheap ($0.0007 per screenshot). I'm charging $0.000365 per screenshot and I thought that was on the higher end. https://www.prerender.cloud/docs/api https://www.prerender.cloud/docs/api curl http://service.prerender.cloud/screenshot/https://google.com/ > out.jpg
  - rokhayakebe 9y ago
    I paid 10 times more for years happily.

laktek 9y ago

And I'm interested to talk more about remote debugging use case. Feel free to drop me a DM on Twitter (@laktek) :)

davidpelayo 9y ago

Let me check if I understood correctly. As the same way you may use TeamViewer for remote desktop control, you would like to perform remote debugging on user browser devtools? Could you drop what's the use case you are imagining in a real scenario? Great comment. Thanks.

indescions_2017 9y ago
Real world example would be an "io game". Like slither.io. I need full client stats: CPU and GPU capabilities, rendering and network performance. Instrumenting in javascript while game is max'ed out during runtime is less than ideal ;)

turtlebits 9y ago

I disagree. $7 is extremely cheap. I really like that it's per use and not a monthly charge. I tried dabbling with [chromeless](https://github.com/graphcool/chromeless https://github.com/graphcool/chromeless) and wasted a bunch of time on some random error that I eventually found out was a bug. If I had to do it myself I'd use Docker + Selenium, but I'd definitely give this a shot first.

justinph 9y ago

I've just done something like this recently and it's not as easy as you might think. It is easy to make a thing happen quickly with a few lines of code, but making it reliable and repeatable is much more time consuming. This looks like very favorable pricing if you don't need certain features. But, if you need support for setting: location, turning on flash, proxies, and https://urlbox.io/ https://urlbox.io/ is also very useful.

mkoryak 9y ago
flash? for screenshots taken at night?

csomar 9y ago

I did this before (manual screenshooting). It'll take 1-2 weeks of full dev work. If you are looking for a quick solution, $7 is less than what I pay at starbucks.

laktek 9y ago
I call this the coffee profitable :) First step to Ramen profitability.

amclennon 9y ago

I've been working on something similar with http://www.butterflyfx.io http://www.butterflyfx.io that captures information beyond a screenshot. It's still a work in progress, however.