[vox-tech] amazon "search in the book" questions

[Karsten M. Self]

on Fri, Jan 06, 2006 at 10:41:57AM -0800, Micah J. Cowan (micah at cowan.name) wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 06, 2006 at 01:25:22PM -0500, Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > Consider this URL, which is a page inside a book about Green's functions:
> > 
> > http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0521282888/ref=sib_rdr_prev2_ex1/104-6467245-0944703?%5Fencoding=UTF8&p=S00H&ns=1#reader-page
> > 
> > When I use the browser (FF) to print the page, the book's contents don't
> > show up on the printed page.  Same thing when I use FF's preview print
> > feature.
> > 
> > When I use left click "view image", the book page's contents disappear too.
> > No matter where I click, the page title is "transparent pixel".
> > 
> > How exactly does Amazon do this?
> 
> >From what I've seen of how it works, I believe they use JavaScript to
> swap the image in and out. That might affect why it doesn't print with
> that; I don't know: however, I don't know how it doesn't show up when
> you "view image".

This is the trick IMDB uses for actor and still photos.  The overt
"image" is a clear gif overlay.  The actual image is a CSS background,
which you can still access/manipulate by viewing source.

Not sure what Amazon's trick is, but view source should provide a clue.
 
> > Is there a way of saving the book page
> > contents to an image file?  The only thing I could think of is taking a
> > window image with GIMP or something like that.

I'd use ImageMagick's "import" m'self.  Note that what you get then is a
bitmap rather than the source image format, which may have better
scaling capabilities.


Peace.

-- 
Karsten M. Self <kmself at ix.netcom.com>        http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
 What Part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
    I pride myself on my lack of vanity.
    - Lee Rudolph
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