Changelog
Recent Improvements to Urlbox
September 2024
- Urlbox Dedicated Cluster: Improvements for high volume Enterprise customers.
- Metadata: Fix issue impacting the collection of open graph data from some sites when using
metadata: true
option. - Video: Fix issue that resulted in bars at edges of mobile viewport videos (less than 500px wide).
- PDF: Resolved new edge case where a page could cause PDF generation to fail.
- Text Highlighting: Resolved new edge case where a page could cause highlighting feature to fail.
- Performance: Various infrastructure improvements.
August 2024
- Press Escape: The
press_escape
option now simulates an escape key press on initial load and after any delay conditions are met. This is useful for dismissing modals/popups that don't show on initial page load. - Refresh Options: Added
refresh
andrefresh_after_scoll
options for reloading a page before taking a screenshot. This helps remove banners and popups that only show to first-time visitors. - Enhanced Scroll Detection: Improved the algorithm for detecting scroll containers. This reduced the number of situations that can prevent full page screenshots from rendering correctly.
- Save Formats in Sandbox: Introduced options to the sandbox UI to save HTML, markdown, and metadata along with a screenshot.
- Video Audio Recording: Introduced support for recording website audio when making video screenshots.
- Video Codec: Added the
video_codec
option to choose between h264, vp8 and vp9 codecs. - Video Length: Removed the 100-second cap for videos, allowing longer video recordings.
- Video Scrolling Screenshots: Added a
video_dont_scroll_back
option to prevent return to top of page when not required. - Video Easing Options: Introduced easing options for scrolling screenshots making them customizable via a dropdown in the sandbox.
- Improved validation: Improved validation of
latitude
,longitude
andaccuracy
options to surface location errors sooner. - Website Update: Refreshed parts of our website to better reflect current uses of Urlbox and added a security page to start sharing more about how we safely render your screenshots.
- Press Escape: The
July 2024
- Screenshot timing: Full page screenshots for a small number of sites with cookie banners were rendering as viewport only. This was because clicking accept was triggering a full page reload.
- Infrastructure enhancement: More flexible storage options for enterprise customers.
- Sticky headers: Some sticky headers were not displaying in full page mode.
- Modal hiding: Ability to detect more popup modals and remove them from screenshots.
- Screenshot width: Limit width when full_width not specified to avoid extreme viewport sizes in some scenarios.
- Build pipeline: Internal tooling improvements to support our growing team.
- Banner display: Add support for Shopify universal banner - no longer hidden by default.
- Engine version: engine_version option can now be set at a project level in the dashboard and on sandbox requests.
- Video: Fix video rendering failures experienced in the latest version of engine.
- One Million Screenshots: Introduced our fresh way to explore the top million homepages.
June 2024
- S3 Configuration: Specify object locked buckets, ensuring no modifications are possible after creation. Added support for multipart uploads to these buckets.
- Platform Option: Added a new platform option. See our blog post on performance improvements for more details.
- Cookie Banners: Improved removal of new cookie banners.
- PDF Margins: Updated PDF margin behaviour to match Chrome.
- Rendering Pipeline: Adjusted timing to resolve a new edge case.
- Debugging Tooling: Enhanced debugging tools and improved error logging.
- UI Improvements: Improved UI in the sandbox for switching between viewport, full-page, and selector options.
- Billing: Fixed issues in the billing experience for returning customers.
- General Enhancements: Various infrastructure, security, and performance improvements.
May 2024
- Engine Version: Introduced engine_version option. See our blog post for more details.
- Debugging Tooling: Improved to resolve more edge cases.
- Blank Images: Fixed issues causing blank images when Puppeteer resizes the viewport.
- SVG Generation: Resolved an edge case causing timeouts.
- Scrolling Behaviour: Adjusted to improve performance and address lazy loading image failures.
- Puppeteer GPU Bug: Resolved a bug with Puppeteer using the GPU.
- Billing: Enhanced billing processes and introduced new pricing for legacy users.
- Onboarding Flow: Improved onboarding for new users.
- Error View: Added renderId to the error view on the dashboard.
- Project/API Key Management: Enhanced management for multiple projects and API keys.
- UI Improvements: Improved the UI for adding S3 credentials.
April 2024
- Form Redesign: Updated login, signup, reset, and confirm password forms to a new design.
- Render Counting Logic: Improved to ensure accurate dashboard statistics.
- Screenshot Handling: Resolved an issue affecting screenshots due to certain CORS configurations.
- Puppeteer Configuration: Updated Chrome arguments in Puppeteer to handle new edge cases.
- Page State Evaluation: Resolved issues caused by website overrides on JSON objects used for page state evaluation.
- Welcome Arnold: Our newest team member.
March 2024
- Cookie Banner Handling: Improved methods to hide more cookie banners.
- Screenshot Timeout: Resolved an edge case causing timeouts for some screenshots taller than 2048px.
- Selector Algorithm: Updated the algorithm for finding selectors to address lazy loading elements.
- Marketing Site: Enhanced navigation to provide easier access to resources.
- Blog: Layout improvements.
February 2024
- Metadata: Improved extraction process.
- HTML Post Handling: Fixed an issue blocking HTML fragments over 1 MB in post requests; now supports up to 10 MB.
- Scrolling: Resolve issue where timeout triggered before reaching bottom of page.
- Rendering Engine: Add handling for websites that set console.log to null.
January 2024
- Urlbox.com: We’ve moved from urlbox.io
- Markdown: Improved markdown rendering stability.
- Metadata Enhancements: Added url_requested and url_resolved to metadata to surface redirections. Fix issue where URL would fallback to example.com.
- Auto Crop: Introduced an auto_crop option to eliminate blank areas in screenshots.
- Demo Bookings: Now accepting bookings for live demonstrations.
- We’re hiring!: Seeking a Full Stack TypeScript Developer