Mark Breen
marklbreen at gmail.com
Mon Dec 13 03:48:10 CST 2010
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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