How do I wait for browser items to appear?

[bmihura]

How do I get AutoIt to wait for items in a browser (on a web page) to show up, like buttons or text boxes or hyperlinks?

WinWaitActive is nice for operating system windows, but does AutoIt have functions for handling items within web pages?

If not, is there something other than AutoIt for web pages?

[AutoChris]

How do I get AutoIt to wait for items in a browser (on a web page) to show up, like buttons or text boxes or hyperlinks?

WinWaitActive is nice for operating system windows, but does AutoIt have functions for handling items within web pages?

If not, is there something other than AutoIt for web pages?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I usually stick with the basics when writing scripts--especially simple scripts. What I usually do when waiting for a page to load is to do a PixelGetColor on the Stop Loading This Page icon on the top of the Mozilla browser to see if the pixel color is no longer red (meaning the page is finished loading.)

On IE, you can just do a StatusBarGetText ("Title", "Text", 1) and look for the word Done to see if the page has finished loading.

Once the page is fully loading, you can be pretty sure the buttons/hyperlinks have loaded as well.

[DaleHohm]

The StatusBarGetText method is simple and is a good solution.

If your interaction needs with IE are more complex however, have a look at the IE Automation UDF Library. The code below will create a browser window, navigate to a page and wait for the page to finish loading before returning control to you:

#include <IE.au3>
$oIE = _IECreate()
_IENavigate("www.autoitscript.com")

Dale

[Daymond]

I have a similar issue, but am working with Google Chrome and need to have the script wait until the page is completely loaded. In some cases the page title changes and the WinWaitActive handles these pages just fine, but I have others that the title never changes and there seems to be no way to have the script wait until the pages have completely loaded. How can I accomplish this?

[Daymond]

Allow me to upgrade this question. Since there is no Chrome UDF, I may have to start using IE for this particular project. However, I am working with one website that has CAPTCHA during the login and therefore would require that site to be open and logged in prior to script execution and in reading the documentation, I don't see how to work with pages that are already loaded. _IECreate and IENavigate would not work well in that scenario. The other site works fine with those 2 functions and won't be an issue. Can someone clue me in on how to work with IE windows that are already open?

Edited December 2, 2011 by Daymond

[Daymond]

I have probably answered my own question to some degree, as I can use the WinActivate syntax to bring the IE window forward, but when I have the script follow a link, I need to have it wait until the page fully loads before it proceeds to the next line. Am I looking for an object to be present or is there another way to go about this? Sorry, but even though I have used AutoIt for a number of years, I have never worked with it to this degree.

[dandv]

Is it really impossible to determine when a web page has finished loading in Chrome?

I tried WinWaitActive() and passed a text parameter of "help" because the page I need to load has the word help at the bottom, but the script never reaches past that point.

...
Send("https://support.twitter.com/forms/general{ENTER}")
Sleep(1000)
WinWaitActive("Twitter Help Center - Google Chrome","help")
; never here

[somdcomputerguy]

If not, is there something other than AutoIt for web pages?

Maybe you can do something with this, the REBOL Language.