opensafely / opensafely/documentation

Update screenshots regularly

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#804 2 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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enhancement
Dominant language
Python
Stars
48
Forks
10
Avg merge
2d 19h
Merged PRs (30d)
17

Description

Summary

As mentioned by @ghickman on Slack, we could use something like shot-scraper to generate screenshots.

This ideally would be automated or, failing that, semi-automated and run by a developer locally.

Benefits

Inspired by https://twitter.com/aaronbassett/status/1536708194160070658:

  • For users, this keeps screenshots up-to-date with the current appearance of web services.
  • For developers, these act as simple additional checks, warning us when web services have changed substantially, either when:
    • the layout has changed somewhat, and a new screenshot does not represent what was intended
    • the layout has changed enough that this automation fails

Questions/ideas

  • What's the best way of automating login to external services where necessary?
  • Would some services block GitHub Actions runners? I've seen this when automating link checks.
  • For services that we develop, we should probably run them with a GitHub Actions runner to screenshot, instead of trying to login into the production site.
  • What about screenshots of, for example, Docker or GitHub Desktop installation processes?
  • Do we want to image diff and use that in automation, to determine when to update?

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by evaluating the proposed shot-scraper approach and the GitHub Actions automation questions described in the issue, including authentication, runner blocking, and image diffs. Done is a decided, repeatable approach for generating and updating service screenshots, with the automation scope and handling of external services documented.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
github-actions
Domain
ci-cd, documentation
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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