Changes¶

1.4 (2015-02-10)¶

This release provides faster and more robust screenshot rendering, many improvements in Splash scripting engine and other improvements like better cookie handling.

From version 1.4 Splash requires Pillow (built with PNG support) to work.

There are backwards-incompatible changes in Splash scripts:

splash:set_viewport() is split into splash:set_viewport_size() and splash:set_viewport_full();
old splash:runjs() method is renamed to splash:evaljs();
new splash:runjs() method just runs JavaScript code without returning the result of the last JS statement.

To upgrade check all splash:runjs() usages: if the returned result is used then replace splash:runjs() with splash:evaljs().

viewport=full argument is deprecated; use render_all=1.

New scripting features:

it is now possible to write custom Lua plugins stored server-side;
a restricted version of Lua require is enabled in sandbox;
splash:autoload() method for setting JS to load on each request;
splash:wait_for_resume() method for interacting with async JS code;
splash:lock_navigation() and splash:unlock_navigation() methods;
splash:set_viewport() is split into splash:set_viewport_size() and splash:set_viewport_full();
splash:get_viewport_size() method;
splash:http_get() method for sending HTTP GET requests without loading result to the browser;
splash:set_content() method for setting page content from a string;
splash:get_cookies(), splash:add_cookie(), splash:clear_cookies(), splash:delete_cookies() and splash:init_cookies() methods for working with cookies;
splash:set_user_agent() method for setting User-Agent header;
splash:set_custom_headers() method for setting other HTTP headers;
splash:url() method for getting current URL;
splash:go() now accepts headers argument;
splash:evaljs() method, which is a splash:runjs() from Splash v1.3.1 with improved error handling (it raises an error in case of JavaScript exceptions);
splash:runjs() method no longer returns the result of last computation;
splash:runjs() method handles JavaScript errors by returning ok, error pair;
splash:get_perf_stats() command for getting Splash resource usage.

Other improvements:

–max-timeout option can be passed to Splash at startup to increase or decrease maximum allowed timeout value;
cookies are no longer shared between requests;
PNG rendering becomes more efficient: less CPU is spent on compression. The downside is that the returned PNG images become 10-15% larger;
there is an option (scale_method=vector) to resize images while painting to avoid pixel-based resize step - it can make taking a screenshot much faster on image-light webpages (up to several times faster);
when ‘height’ is set and image is downscaled the rendering is more efficient because Splash now avoids rendering unnecessary parts;
/debug endpoint tracks more objects;
testing setup improvements;
application/json POST requests handle invalid JSON better;
undocumented splash:go_and_wait() and splash:_wait_restart_on_redirects() methods are removed (they are moved to tests);
Lua sandbox is cleaned up;
long log messages from Lua are truncated in logs;
more detailed error info is logged;
example script in Splash UI is simplified;
stress tests now include PNG rendering benchmark.

Bug fixes:

default viewport size and window geometry are now set to 1024x768; this fixes PNG screenshots with viewport=full;
PNG rendering is fixed for huge viewports;
splash:go() argument validation is improved;
timer is properly deleted when an exception is raised in an errback;
redirects handling for baseurl requests is fixed;
reply is deleted only once when baseurl is used.

1.3.1 (2014-12-13)¶

This release fixes packaging issues with Splash 1.3.

1.3 (2014-12-04)¶

This release introduces an experimental scripting support.

Other changes:

manhole is disabled by default in Debian package;
more objects are tracked in /debug endpoint;
“history” in render.json now includes “queryString” keys; it makes the output compatible with HAR entry format;
logging improvements;
improved timer cancellation.

1.2.1 (2014-10-16)¶

Dockerfile base image is downgraded to Ubuntu 12.04 to fix random crashes;
Debian/buildbot config is fixed to make Splash UI available when deployed from deb;
Qt / PyQt / sip / WebKit / Twisted version numbers are logged at startup.

1.2 (2014-10-14)¶

All Splash rendering endpoints now accept Content-Type: application/json POST requests with JSON-encoded rendering options as an alternative to using GET parameters;
headers parameter allows to set HTTP headers (including user-agent) for all endpoints - previously it was possible only in proxy mode;
js_source parameter allows to execute JS in page context without application/javascript POST requests;
testing suite is switched to pytest, test running can now be parallelized;
viewport size changes are logged;
/debug endpoint provides leak info for more classes;
Content-Type header parsing is less strict;
documentation improvements;
various internal code cleanups.

1.1 (2014-10-10)¶

An UI is added - it allows to quickly check Splash features.
Splash can now return requests/responses information in HAR format. See render.har endpoint and har argument of render.json endpoint. A simpler history argument is also available. With HAR support it is possible to get timings for various events, HTTP status code of the responses, HTTP headers, redirect chains, etc.
Processing of related resources is stopped earlier and more robustly in case of timeouts.
wait parameter changed its meaning: waiting now restarts after each redirect.
Dockerfile is improved: image is updated to Ubuntu 14.04; logs are shown immediately; it becomes possible to pass additional options to Splash and customize proxy/js/filter profiles; adblock filters are supported in Docker; versions of Python dependencies are pinned; Splash is started directly (without supervisord).
Splash now tries to start Xvfb automatically - no need for xvfb-run. This feature requires xvfbwrapper Python package to be installed.
Debian package improvements: Xvfb viewport matches default Splash viewport, it is possible to change Splash option using SPLASH_OPTS environment variable.
Documentation is improved: finally, there are some install instructions.
Logging: verbosity level of several logging events are changed; data-uris are truncated in logs.
Various cleanups and testing improvements.

1.0 (2014-07-28)¶

Initial release.