How to automate existing instances of Internet Explorer - Tutorial(4)

As explained in a previous tutorial, a web macro can start by connecting to an already running instance of Internet Explorer browser. A web macro usually starts a new Internet Explorer page and then navigates to a URL to begin with. There are times when automating an existing IE window is a more natural alternative. Let's start with a JScript/WSH simple web macro:

// Create core object.
var core = new ActiveXObject("Twebst.Core");

// Find a browser for which the displayed URL contains "yahoo".
core.useRegExp = true;
var b1 = core.FindBrowser("url=.*yahoo.*");
b1.Navigate("www.google.com");

// Find a browser for which the title is "Google" (exact match).
core.useRegExp = false;
var b2 = core.FindBrowser("title=Google");

b2.Close();

Basically FindBrowser method searches for a browser page based on TITLE and/or URL. If core.useRegExp is false then an exact search is used. If core.useRegExp is true then the search uses regular expressions. Once connected to a IE browser instance, you get a Browser object to play with.

Of course, this works for IE6, IE7, IE8 on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 (32 and 64 bit) and it's compatible with Internet Explorer Protected Mode.

What can you do with a Browser object? Quite a lot of things: Navigate to a URL, FindElement and FindFrame inside it, Close the browser, get information about the browser, automate modal and modeless HTML dialgos and wait to complete navigation and loading.

Enough talk! It's time to Download Twebst Automation Studio and see it for yourself.

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