sdspieg

I used to know how to do this, but didn't document it. And now I couldn't find it here so let me try to ask again in this clearly VERY helpful forum.

Here's where I'm at

• on a webpage, I am able to click on a box that gets me to the next page of a series through mouse moves (I can't reach it reliably through <Tab>s, because the number of <Tab>s to get there varies);
• I now want to wait until a certain pixel on a page turns a certain color, and then end the macro
• I tried putting this code at the end of of the (otherwise working) macro, based on this information from the Mouse locator '
• this is to be a part of a sequence: 
  • my first macro ('Select 100 items') reliably (Tab, Tab, Tab) selects all 100 items on the screen and puts them in an online folder;
  • my second one (this one - 'Go to next page') is supposed to get me to the next page;
  • since the max N of items in the folder is 500, I want to repeat these two macros 5x
  • after that I have another reliable 'Tab-Tab-Tab'- macro that downloads the 500 items and clears the folder. But so on that one, I'd like to put a 'Wait until the activate window shows that pixel in that color', and then stop the macro. 

My questions:

• is there a smarter way of putting the values for N[1] and N[2] in there than writing it down somewhere and entering it manually
• does anybody have any idea why my 'Wait for pixel color'-keystrokes don't work
• any other ideas for making this whole thing work reliable?

Thanks much!

Ok. Thanks for that prompt reply. I'll try

I am trying to repeat various actions on paginated webpages, and I have a macro that just recorded my mouse movements and works reasonably well. But not perfect, since the boxes do not always appear in the right place. Hence the following two questions:

•  is there a way of finding this box then clicking on it in a way that does not involve using the mouse ? 
•  and then the same here: is there a way to reliably jump to the next page - again without using a mouse?

Thanks much for any advice!

Seems to work here in FF 9.0.1.

 

Initially I got this warning:

 

 

After changing that setting in about:config I tried again but nothing appeared to happen. But when I removed that 'void' piece, I got a result that I assume was the expected one:

 

 

--

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Terry, thanks. When I typed about:config, I saw no such string. So I added it manually, type boolean, value true (it says 'user set' - is that ok?). But it still doesn't change anything. Am I missing sthg? I am using the latest version of Firefox...

BTW - I CAN now replicate YOUR example, but when I enter the javascript code that I see in the source page of the webpage on which I'm trying to automate some actions, I get no response whatsoever..

Does this help? Running JavaScript within a browser

Thanks Paul, but no it doesn't. I've tried this trick in Chrome (where it just assumes I want to do a google search) AND in Firefox (which does nothing when I paste the code in the URL and then click on enter). FYI - the code I added is sthg like javascript:addAll();void(0);

Cheers,

-Stephan

I have examples here in the forum of how you could download the raw HTML text using a simple VBScript. But I doubt you could run the Java-Script outside the browser session. I've been writing scrapers lately for clients and found that MEP just became too difficult to manage and instead I have been writing VB.NET application's to do it. I manage to log in, navigate, and execute all kinds of actions all via HTTPWebRequests. This was necessary because the requests all require session cookies that would be difficult or impossible to do any other way.

 

But I'm curious. Why do you want to run the JS outside otheeh web browser? IE whcan't't you simply click on the button or what have you?

Thanks. Well the site has multiple pages, and the only way to go to the next page is to click on the 'next page' button, which is not always in the exact same place (it shows previous - 1 - 2 - 3 - ... - next; and so when you get to 10 - 11 - 12 etc the next is more to the right)...

-Stephan

Normally Chrome, but I also have MSIE and Firefox installed....

I am trying to create a macro to automate some actions I would like to perform on a website. But the actions themselves appear to be in javascript. Is there any way to run those from within MEX? Or at least to find a way for MEX to 'find' the appropriate javascript on that page (e.g. by searching on the page source?) and then click on it? Thanks!

-Stephan

Yes, of course. Use an integer variable and increment each time. For instance in Yahoo Groups they all have a 'messageid' portion in the URL. Instead of clicking or following I simply started at 1 and incremented it each loop. Something like this:

<REP3:08:000002:000001:0001:1:01:T1><NMVAR:08:01:0:0000001:0:0000000><HTTP2:1:T:http://*****.*****.*****/searchresults/articles.jsp?pg=%N1%><ENDREP>

Another thing to bear in mind is not to get stuck in the mindset that you have to click on links in the web page. I often grab the web page I need with WGET (downloads the HTML w/o IE to file) then use the data in the HTML to launch IE or another pass at WGET. IOW think of navigating with a series of launches instead of trying to click on links. Oh, "View Source" works well for this also.

Thanks so much - what a great forum!!!

Wondered if somebody here could help us out. We are writing a macro to help us fill out a form that allows you to select a whole set of items (they're newspaper articles and the search results are shown 20 at a time with a checkbox in front of each article). The macro then opens the full-text of the checked articles as one large html-file and saves them 20 at a time. The problem is that we have a few thousands results and would like to save them all. We figured out how to check all checkboxes, how to open the large html-file and to save those (well actually, we're still struggling to find a way use the date/time stamp to create unique filenames, - we haven't quite figured this out yet, but I do think we'll be able to manage that one.

What we can't manage (yet) is how to get to the next page for the next set of search results. There is no 'next page' that we could have the macro click on , but there IS a logic in the consecutive pages' url's: http://*****.*****.*****/searchresults/articles.jsp?pg=2, http://*****.*****.*****/searchresults/articles.jsp?pg=3, etc. Is there a way to repeat the macro in such a way that it stores that URL as a variable and then just incrementally adds a number to the page number (i.e. first ...2, then...3, then...4 and so on in a loop until it no longer finds the higher number)?

Any help greatly appreciated!

-Stephan

Well I'm a newbie myself, but I've done this by using Ctrl-F and tabs (Ctrl-F to find a word just prior to the field that has to be filled in) and then Tab (to get in that field). Worked fine for me - and should also be browser-independent.

-Stephan

Thanks Kevin! With your and Paul's help I now got the macro to do exactly what I want.

-Stephan

Absolutely brilliant Paul!!! Works like a charms. Thanks so much,

-Stephan

Paul, thanks - but can you please expand on this? I'm a newbie...

-Stephan

Is there any way to make a macro wait until a frame has loaded on a webpage? I tried with the 'wait for web'page' (without a name - because it's a java-based page and the name of the webpage itself doesn't change), also with a delay as suggested on this board, but the macro doesn't 'get' it...

Here's what I try to do - I have to fill in some fields on a webform, then click on enter (and all of this works fine); but then I have to wait until that request is fulfilled until I repeat the macro, and the timing on that one is extremely erratic.

Any ideas? Thanks

-Stephan

Hi all,

This is the first time I'm trying sthg a bit fancier with Macro Express and I'm getting stuck. I'd appreciate it if somebody could help me.

I have to fill in a webform in which I have to send numbered items to my email address, whereby the form will only take 100 items at the same time. There is a 'From' field and a 'To'-field (and a bunch of other stuff which I CAN handle). Now I thought I could use integer variables for those (and I do know how to get MacEx to get to the right fields automatically): so in the From:-field I'd always enter %T1% and in the To:field %T2%. The first time, the values for those two variables would have to be '1' (for From:) and '100' (for To:); but in the next iterations, I'd like MacEx to replace those with 101 and 200 (and then 201-300 etc.) respectively. It would have to go up to 150'000. Is there any way of doing this? Can I get MacEx to increase the values for these variables automatically with increments of 100? Any other ideas also greatly appreciated,

Thanks a bunch!

-Stephan