IE Web Login Automation

One highly repetitive web task is the logon to a web site. This is a common scenario where Twebst Web Automation Library really shines. Here is a short web macro written in JScript language that automatically logs you on Yahoo Mail site. All you have to do is to replace "UUUUUUUUUU" and "PPPPPPPPPP" with your user name and password in the code below.

// Open a browser and navigate to yahoo mail login page.
var core = new ActiveXObject("Twebst.Core");
var browser = core.StartBrowser("https://login.yahoo.com/config/mail?.intl=us");

// Find login fields.
var u = browser.FindElement("input text");
var p = browser.FindElement("input password");
var s = browser.FindElement("input submit");

// Log on to site by filling the user-name and password fileds and then click submit boutton.
u.InputText("UUUUUUUUUU");
p.InputText("PPPPPPPPPP");
s.Click();

FindElement searches thru all frames/iframes hierarchy for the first input element of type text/password/submit. Additional conditions can be specified for search (like searching an element by id/name or any other HTML attribute). Search conditions can make use of regular expressions if needed.

One more important thing is that FindElement method waits for the web page to be completely loaded before searching the element (the timeout can be specified by using core.loadTimeout property). Read more about Twebst Library...

Download:

• Twebst Library Pro (it must be installed for the macro to work).


• YahooMail.js


• Script Of The Day system if you want to easily install more login templates.

Twebst Web Automation Library v1.40 released

Twebst version 1.40 is launched!
Main changes include IE8 compatibility, better support for working with embeded IE browser control, support for modal and modeless HTML dialogs and functions for clipboard access.

Here is the list of new features and enhancements:
- NEW: IE8 is now supported
- ENH: core.AttachToNative* methods work now with hosted IE browser control
- BUG: various fixes
- NEW: core.foregroundBrowser property
- NEW: core.productName property
- NEW: core.productVersion property
- NEW: core.GetClipboardText method
- NEW: core.SetClipboardText method
- NEW: core.AttachToWnd method
- NEW: core.NativeWindowToNativeBrowser method
- NEW: core.NativeWindowToNativeDocument method
- NEW: core.NativeWindowToNativeDocument
- NEW: browser.FindModalHtmlDialog method
- NEW: browser.FindModelessHtmlDialog method
- NEW: element.GetAttribute method
- NEW: element.SetAttribute method
- NEW: element.RemoveAttribute method
- NEW: element.tagName property
- NEW: element.FindParentElement method
- NEW: core.RightClick method-
- Find more ...

Free Download Twebst Library 1.40

Homemade Handcrafted Help System

A good documentation is very important for any serious project. It comes a moment in life, when programmers find themselves working on the help system. That is what happened to me during the later stages of Twebst Web Automation Library project. Even though this project is not open source, I try to make public as many parts of it as possible. Today I will present Twebst Help System and how this tedious and annoying task of creating it, was automated.

Twebst is a library of COM objects used to automate Internet Explorer browser. The objects and the supported properties and methods have to be documented . The page structure is the same for every object/method/property and it also contains code samples that need syntax highlighting. This is good news because it leaves a lot of place for templates and automation.

Here is the solution:

• The template is an XML document. When documenting an object/method or property the focus is on the content rather than on formatting the text. There is one XML file for each object/method/property.
• A WSH script written in jscript parses the XML document and adds syntax highlighting to sample code in the documentation page. Regular expression are used for parsing.
  
• cross references are added automatically by the same script.
  
• then a XSL transformation is applied to convert XML source to a HTML document that will be eventually written to disk.
• The whole process is optimized by removing unnecessary operations like generating the HTML when it already exists and is newer than its XML source.
• Finally the HTML documents refers a CSS style sheet to easily change the look.
  

It goes like this:
XML + JScript-> XML with color syntax and cross references + XSL -> HTML + CSS -> CHM

For local help, the CHM compiler is invoked as a final step and a CHM Help File is generated. All you have to do is launching Build.js script you may find in the archive below.

Downloads: TwebstHelp.zip

Prerequisites: In order to build the CHM file you'll need HTML Help Workshop from Microsoft.

focus vs fireEvent("onfocus")

While working on Twebst web automation library I encountered this problem: how to simulate setting the focus on HTML edit controls in Internet Explorer? There are two ways to do this.

1. Call IHTMLElement2::focus() method on target element that "causes the element to receive the focus and executes the code specified by the onfocus event".
2. Rise onfocus event on target element by calling IHTMLElement3::fireEvent() method.

The two approaches are quite similar but there are some interesting differences.

1. fireEvent("onfocus") does not actually set the focus on the element, it just executes the code of the onfocus handler event.
2. Calling focus method sets the focus on target element and call the onfocus event handler but not immediately. The onfocus event seems to be inserted in a queue and its handler is executed asynchronously after the current handler is finished.
3. If focus method is called from inside the onfocus handler nothing happens if the control already has the focus (that prevents an infinite recursion).

Example:


<html>
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">
function BtnFocusClick()
{
     document.getElementById('editTest').focus();
     window.status += "b";
}

function BtnOnFocusClick()
{
     document.getElementById('editTest').fireEvent('onfocus');
     window.status += "c";
}

function EditOnFocus()
{
     window.status += "a";
}
</script>

<body>
     <input type="text" onfocus="EditOnFocus()"; id="editTest"/><br/>
     <input type="button" value="focus" id="btnFocus" onclick="BtnFocusClick();"/>
     <input type="button" value="fire onfocus" id="btnOnFocus" onclick="BtnOnFocusClick();"/>
</body>
</html>

If pressing the button "fire onfocus" button the message in the Internet Explorer status bar is the expected one "ac". If pressing the "focus" button, the message is in reverse order than expected: "ba". That suggests that EditOnFocus handler is called after BtnFocusClick exit.

codeproject

COM number speller

Some time ago, I was asked to provide a way to print numbers as text in Romanian language. Interestingly, I couldn't find an easy way to do this in Excel (Office 2003 as far as I remember). Searching the internet, I found other people having the same problem. Microsoft provides a solution for English language, but not for Romanian.

I decided to create a reusable piece of code that will be easily used in as many environments as possible. I chose COM and ATL to be the solution to my problem. This is also a good programming exercise for my rusty COM / C++ skills and I plan to use it as a template for all my future COM objects.

Points of interest:

• error info support by implementing IErrorInfo interface.
• Help in CHM format and context identifiers specified in MIDL source file.
• BSTR manipulation using CComBSTR class provided by ATL.
• IDispatch support, so the component can be used from scripting environments.
  
• Spelling implementation itself and support for multiple languages (only Romanian and English for now).

To install the COM object just simply run Install.bat
Here is the Excel macro that makes use of NumberSpeller COM object:

Function Spell(n As Currency) As String
'Create the speller object.
Dim s As NumberSpellerLib.speller
Set s = New NumberSpellerLib.speller

Dim o As Object
Set o = s
o.Language = "ro"
Spell = o.Translate(n)
End Function

Downloads:

• full source code, compiled DLL and CHM help: NumberSpeller.zip
  
• C++ sample code: NumberSpellerSample1.zip
  
• Excel sample file: NumberSpellerSample2.zip
  
• JS sample file: NumberSpellerSample3.zip