IE controls with no Name or ID...

[TJ123]

I am trying use ControlSend and ControlSet Text to enter some information in an IE form. I was also hoping to make a selection from a drop down menu.

However when I use AutoIt Window Info on these controls I do not get a Name or ID when using IE. I tried using Chrome and I do get a control ID number, but it is the same for all the controls in this area.

This is what AutoIt Window Info returns for all the controls on the part of the page I am working with while running IE:

Class: Internet Explorer_Server

Instance: 3

ClassnameNN: Internet Explorer_Server3

Name:

Advanced Mode: [CLASS:Internet Explorer_Server; INSTANCE:3]

ID:

Text:

Position 0, 91

Size 1090, 757

Control Click Coords 45, 28

Style 0x56000000

ExStyle 0x00000000

Handle 0x000000000029021A

Any suggestions as to how I can work with these controls is greatly appreciated!

TJ.

[PhoenixXL]

Something unique must be present it may be the classname or value

for more help please give the Site Address

Hope so u r not violating any of the forum rules

Edited July 16, 2012 by PhoenixXL

[TJ123]

No, I do not think I am breaking any rules. I am trying to create a script that will go to the Google Currency Exchange page and check the exchange rates on a few currencies and record them to a text file, along with the time and date.

The Google Exchange page can be found here: http://www.google.com/finance/converter

I also tried using the Bank of Canada exchange site with similar issues. It can be found here: http://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/exchange/daily-converter/

Any assistance getting the Name or ID of the controls on these pages would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks for any help,

TJ.

[Mithrandir]

I would rather use the IE UDF, search in the help file for _IECreate , _IEFormGetObjByName, _IEFormElementOptionselect . To inspect the DOM of a page in Internet Explorer you can use debugbar. Try it and if you have any doubt ask again.

Edited July 16, 2012 by Mithrandir

[TJ123]

Thanks for your ideas Mithrandir. I was looking at the IE UDF earlier today. It looked a bit more complicated than using ControlSend, but is obviously more powerful in many respects.

One question, I tried using "View Source" to look at the page and see if I could find anything. Is using dubugbar to inspect the DOM going to help me find the Name and/or ID attributes that I was looking for originally? Would this show the Name or ID when the AutoIt Window Info Tool does not? From what I was reading it looked like I would still need the control Name or ID to make full use of the IE UDF, am I mistaken about that?

Thanks for any help you can provide,

TJ.

Edited July 17, 2012 by TJ123

[Mithrandir]

Thanks for your ideas Mithrandir. I was looking at the IE UDF earlier today. It looked a bit more complicated than using ControlSend, but is obviously more powerful in many respects.

One question, I tried using "View Source" to look at the page and see if I could find anything. Is using dubugbar to inspect the DOM going to help me find the Name and/or ID attributes that I was looking for originally? Would this show the Name or ID when the AutoIt Window Info Tool does not? From what I was reading it looked like I would still need the control Name or ID to make full use of the IE UDF, am I mistaken about that?

Thanks for any help you can provide,

TJ.

Oh, I see, you are mistaking the ID of a window with the ID of an object of an HTML document. Look, the autoit window info is useful to automatize windows like in the winzip auto install that is in the beginning of the helpfile.

Now, to automatize Internet Explorer with the IE UDF, (I assume you have basic knowledge of HTML, if not I would recommend http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp ) you have to look in the source code either as you did with ´view source´ or with the help of tools like firebug for firefox or debugbar for IE. There you will find elements with tags like <form name= or <form id=

When an element does not have name or id you can get them by index (first form in the code is 0, second is 1 and so on). With that information, you can make your script.

For instance, in the source of http://www.google.com/finance/converter you can see there's a form with this code:

<form action="/finance/converter" method="f"> (......)

Its name is 'f' go get it with _IEFormGetObjByName

and it has a select with this code:

<select name=from value="">

<option value="AED">United Arab Emirates Dirham (AED)</option> (.....)

There you can use _IEFormElementOptionselect after using IEGetObjById

Try it and show some code even if it doesn't work or If you didn't understand something just ask.

Edited July 17, 2012 by Mithrandir

[TJ123]

Hey Mithrandir,

Thank you very much for the info. I was really busy the past two days, but I am going to try a few things today based on your suggestions.

I was not aware that method="f" meant that it's name was "f". Just knowing that may help me figure things out from here.

Thanks again,

TJ.

[JohnOne]

I was not aware that method="f" meant that it's name was "f".

I'm 99% certain that it does not.

[DaleHohm]

I'm 99% certain that it does not.

Make that 100% certain. Use _IEFormGetCollection with an index parameter if there is no name= or id=.

Dale

Edited July 18, 2012 by DaleHohm

[TJ123]

Hi,

Thanks for the advice. I was just looking at the page source and the name is "f", the method is "get". I think Mithrandir might have just made a typo or a cut/paste error.

But thanks for the help, it is appreciated!

TJ.

[Mithrandir]

Hi,

Thanks for the advice. I was just looking at the page source and the name is "f", the method is "get". I think Mithrandir might have just made a typo or a cut/paste error.

But thanks for the help, it is appreciated!

TJ.

Yes, my bad, I wanted to paste

<form action="/finance/converter" method="get" name="f">

Sorry for the mistake . It's good to see you figuring things out and using the IE udf. If you need any help ask again. I remember the days when I was starting with the IE udf and DaleHohm helped me a lot (by the way now that I saw his signature I think that was because of him that I downloaded debugbar