Automate an ActiveX Control

[stoli]

I am trying to retrieve text from within an activeX control that is an object in a web page. There is no specific documentation on the control. All I know is the filename and location on my drive (it is a .dll that is downloaded via a .cab file). The control itself is very simple, there is a single window in which you type in text commands and you get text back. Just like a dos prompt.

So far, I have created an au3 script to start IE, put in my username and password, submit the form and then open the page with the control in it. I have also been successful using the Send command to activate the control and enter text commands. Now I need to retrieve the responses. The response text is in the control itself and not part of the html in the page. I know I am being rather vague, and apologize.

Any ideas on what my next step might be?

[zfisherdrums]

Hello Stoli,

A quick response before I run out the door.

1 ) Google the control and see if there is any publicly available API documentation for the object

2 ) Use OLEview (or Excel VBA ) to interrogate the DLL for exposed methods, properties, etc.

3 ) If all else fails, resort to OCR. For my money, SnagIt8 is a relatively cheap/powerful OCR application that provides a COM server that can be embedded in an AutoIt script.

Hope this helps!

Zach...

[stoli]

Thanks Zach. Your reply was a help - a sanity check at the very least to make sure I was on the right track. The control has no documentation and no exposed methods other than a few parameters set inside the html document. No suprise since the authors are paranoid about the security of the site.

The control does allow a crude text "select" using the mouse, and a standard copy/paste interface, so I might be able to script the process that way. Crude, but it might work. I will attack the problem from that angle and see where it takes me.

Thanks for the reply.

[DaleHohm]

Note that you can use _IEPropertyGet on the OBJECT element to get its screen or browser-based coordinates, height and width that could aid you in positioning mouse clicks.

Dale