jwcolby
jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Mon Dec 13 10:57:48 CST 2010
> If you use a hosting company that supports ASP.NET it is almost a given that they will provide
SQL Server.
Right. But if I do the Clickonce distribution of a normal C# app then I would not be using ASP.Net
and I could just use any web host that provided MySQL, which is just about all of them.
John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com
On 12/13/2010 11:35 AM, Doug Murphy wrote:
> If you use a hosting company that supports ASP.NET it is almost a given that
> they will provide SQL Server.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of jwcolby
> Sent: Monday, December 13, 2010 7:34 AM
> To: Discussion concerning Visual Basic and related programming issues.
> Subject: Re: [dba-VB] Web page manipulation
>
> The "clients" are tiny and completely non-technical. One is a non-profit
> that assists people with disabilities to find service providers and other
> assistance. They have about a half dozen people that work for them, meeting
> the people needing assistance, usually in that person's home. The database
> will be a dozen or so tables and is basically just for hours worked kind of
> stuff.
>
> The other "client" is a prison ministry which has lists of programs they
> provide in the prisons, volunteers, churches and pastors. Again, as hand
> full of volunteers that need to get at this information and maintain it,
> again working out of their homes.
>
> Both applications need to hit a database over the internet, and are pretty
> much simple data entry and some reporting.
>
> Both are sure to grow but I need to just get the basics up and running,
> hopefully fairly rapidly. I have no control over the web hosting. Very
> likely I will need to use MySQL since that is almost universal for web
> hosting sites, so if they have a web site already, that will almost
> certainly be available.
>
> Access just seems to be a bad fit for these, and I have zero knowledge even
> about how to set up the MySQL database, connect to it etc.
>
> I have a web site that provides me with these services, already paid for and
> which I could use initially at least to get set up and running, and up to
> speed knowledge wise. Eventually I will need to move the data out to their
> own web hosting if I can.
>
> John W. Colby
> www.ColbyConsulting.com
>
> On 12/13/2010 4:48 AM, Mark Breen wrote:
>> Hello John
>>
>> Another choice is to use Sillennium<http://seleniumhq.org/>
>>
>> It is built for this task and will allow you to easily change your
>> library of routines when your website changes.
>>
>> Mark
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 10 December 2010 22:33, Drew Wutka<DWUTKA at marlow.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Now for a little more info for you. Yes, you can certainly do this.
>>> Technically, it's not much different than if someone handed you an
>>> .mde, and asked you to automate tasks in the mde (so you couldn't
>>> tweak the source code running the program itself, but you could open
>>> the mde with VBA, and use the objects within it just like you'd use
>>> the objects in your own application.)
>>>
>>> Trick #1: Just like with an .mde, you have to have a reference to
>>> the database itself, so with a browser, you need a reference to it.
>>> You can either programmatically open a browser window (so you'll both
>>> create the object, and have a reference to it), or you can ask the
>>> user which browser window they want you to use (so you can grab the
>>> browser window through code).
>>>
>>> Here's an example of how to grab an existing browser window:
>>>
>>> Function GetExistingBrowser(strKey As String) Dim SWs As New
>>> SHDocVw.ShellWindows Dim IE As SHDocVw.InternetExplorer Dim mdie As
>>> InternetExplorer Dim Resp For Each IE In SWs
>>> Resp = MsgBox("Do you want to select: "& vbCrLf& vbCrLf&
>>> IE.LocationName& vbCrLf& vbCrLf& IE.LocationURL, vbYesNo +
>>> vbQuestion, "Select IE")
>>> If Resp = vbYes Then
>>> Set mdie = Nothing
>>> Set mdie = IE.Application
>>> NewSormDataEntry strKey, mdie
>>> Exit Function
>>> End If
>>> Next
>>> End Function
>>>
>>> The 'NewSormDataEntry' function is the function I am sending the mdie
>>> object too (the referenced browser window). In this function strKey
>>> is the primary key of a record that will be used in that
>>> NewSormDataEntry to submit data into a web site.
>>>
>>> Trick #2: Just like when the development world got a wedgie when
>>> Microsoft 'secured' Outlook from programs just using it to send
>>> email, web security can be a real pain in doing something like this.
>>> The security is put in place to impede (note, I didn't say prevent) a
>>> hacker from doing nasty stuff to the site. So the 'impeding' garbage
>>> designed to trip up hackers can get in the way of a legitimate
>>> developer trying to create a helpful tool. So before you COMMIT to
>>> being able to make the tool, you'll need to look at the site itself,
>>> to see what all will get in your way.
>>>
>>> Trick #3: There are two ways to 'find' the objects you will need
>>> your code to work with. The first is to just look at the HTML of the
>>> page(s) you are going to manipulate. This is where some of those
> 'impediments'
>>> come into play. Some sites prevent you from right clicking on a page
>>> and selecting 'View Source'. Ironically, this is just removing a
>>> 'shortcut' way to view the HTML source behind a page. It doesn't
>>> actually HIDE the source, because your browser is viewing the source,
>>> it has too, otherwise it will have nothing to display. So there are
>>> multiple ways to 'download' the HTML you can view yourself. Create
>>> your own browser, and dump the HTML to a file. You can also use API
>>> calls to just directly download the HTML, without a browser. If the
>>> page is derived from internal (on the website server) variables,
>>> you'll need to use your own browser to get there and download the
>>> source. The second way to 'find' the objects you need to deal with
>>> are with the object browser. Running your code in debug mode, you'll
>>> be able to see the browser object, and all of it's child elements.
>>>
>>> Trick #4: Events and properties. Setting the value of a textbox, or
>>> clicking a button, just requires that you know what the events and
>>> properties of those objects are. I use the MSDN that came with the
>>> developer edition of Office 2000. It's got a nice HTML guide with
>>> common HTML form elements, their properties, methods, and events.
>>> But all that information is also plastered all over the web.
>>>
>>> Trick #5: When a page loads, the browser object is there, but you
>>> may not be able to capture 'download complete' events. What I have
>>> done in these cases, where my code puts in data on a page, clicks a
>>> button to go to the next page, I put my code in a loop, that sits and
>>> waits for an object from the next page to exist.
>>>
>>> Of course, if there are applets, or flash media elements, required
>>> for interaction... can't help ya there, haven't tackled one of those.
>>>
>>> Drew
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
>>> [mailto:dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of jwcolby
>>> Sent: Friday, December 10, 2010 3:30 PM
>>> To: VBA
>>> Subject: [dba-VB] Web page manipulation
>>>
>>> My client has to go through a process where he clicks about 20 - 30
>>> things to manage to get a file downloaded. It sounded totally
>>> convoluted but the question is (and I have asked this before without
>>> a usable response) can I programmatically manipulate web pages to
>>> cause specific pages to open, click buttons, input data into controls
>>> etc.
>>>
>>> --
>>> John W. Colby
>>> www.ColbyConsulting.com
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