Displaying preview of any URL link entered by the user like Skype?

Solar2D General Questions/Discussion
#1

As mentioned in title, is there a way to create an image with a description, for a url link that’s provided?

For example, if h’ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUgRDYehv0M is entered,

https://i.stack.imgur.com/cImqh.png it will look like 

#2

I am not aware of a way to do this in Corona.

Rob

#3

Actually, there may be a couple of ways to do this. You could use a thumbnail generation service like https://www.thumboo.com/ that builds web preview images. While I don’t know that I would recommend that particular site (it seemed kinda slow), they provide some simple JavaScript code that could be included in a native.newWebView().  Another option is to download the page’s HTML and parse through the header looking for something like the Facebook “og” or “open graph” tags, twitter cards, etc. and construct your own little widget based on the headers, description and thumbnail image typically included.

But there is no one line Corona API to do this.

Rob

#4

Ah ok, I thought it may have been a bit much to ask for to be available in API. 

Thanks for the insight and alternative options!!

#5

I am not aware of a way to do this in Corona.

Rob

#6

Actually, there may be a couple of ways to do this. You could use a thumbnail generation service like https://www.thumboo.com/ that builds web preview images. While I don’t know that I would recommend that particular site (it seemed kinda slow), they provide some simple JavaScript code that could be included in a native.newWebView().  Another option is to download the page’s HTML and parse through the header looking for something like the Facebook “og” or “open graph” tags, twitter cards, etc. and construct your own little widget based on the headers, description and thumbnail image typically included.

But there is no one line Corona API to do this.

Rob

#7

Ah ok, I thought it may have been a bit much to ask for to be available in API. 

Thanks for the insight and alternative options!!