Controling a web page - fill in text & submit

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clueless John - 30 Aug 2005 15:35 GMT

I posted this previously, but got no response. Am I even in the right place
for this question?

I am trying to automate a daily download process that manually requires me
to navigate to a website, select a radio button, fill in two text boxes and
click a submit button. I can get Access to open IExplorer and navigate to
the website by using
Dim ieApp As InternetExplorer
Set ieApp = New InternetExplorer
ieApp.Visible = True
ieApp.Navigate "http://...

After that, I am lost. I've tried to use ieApp.PutProperty with no success.
(I'm either not getting the syntax right, or it just isn't the right method,
???)

Does anyone have a clue for me?

Signature

I may not know yet, but I will.

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Tim Ferguson - 30 Aug 2005 17:26 GMT

"=?Utf-8?B?Y2x1ZWxlc3MgSm9obg==?="
<cluelessJohn@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
news:6EB3D4CD-4A34-4502-ABFB-1164DBA980E1@microsoft.com:

> I am trying to automate a daily download process that manually
> requires me to navigate to a website, select a radio button, fill in
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> ieApp.Visible = True
> ieApp.Navigate "http://...

With a bit of digging around in the form's source code, you should be
able to reconstruct the entire URI of the completed form; then use the
GET or POST method to get the result. You should be able to do this with
a

Set oHttpPost = CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP")
oHttpPost.Open "GET", c_urlCheckIP, False

or something like that.

Hope it helps

Tim F

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clueless John - 30 Aug 2005 19:33 GMT

I get an invalid procedure call on the line
oHttpPost.Open "GET", c_urlCheckIP, False
Can you explain what it is doing? I don't get any hints form VBA since this
is a generic Object.

As far as digging in the code,
The only access to the web page code is through right-click View Source. I
can identify the names of text boxes, radio buttons, and the submit button
caption.
The submit action appears to be this:
<FORM action="ViewReport.asp" method=Post target=_blank id=form1
name=form1><strong>
It opens another explorer window that churns for a while as
http://...ViewReport.asp, then turns into the report as an excel spreadsheet
with a very long and strange address.
http://...viewrpt.cwr?id=52032&apstoken=...

Can any of this be useful to me?

Signature

I may not know yet, but I will.

> "=?Utf-8?B?Y2x1ZWxlc3MgSm9obg==?="
> <cluelessJohn@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
[quoted text clipped - 22 lines]
>
> Tim F

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Tim Ferguson - 31 Aug 2005 10:39 GMT

"=?Utf-8?B?Y2x1ZWxlc3MgSm9obg==?="
<cluelessJohn@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
news:83DBB128-15B0-497D-B4BC-B6BDEF17B2AC@microsoft.com:

> I get an invalid procedure call on the line
> oHttpPost.Open "GET", c_urlCheckIP, False
> Can you explain what it is doing? I don't get any hints form VBA
> since this is a generic Object.

Have you tried googling for "Microsoft.XMLHTTP" -- lots of good advice
there?

> As far as digging in the code,
> The only access to the web page code is through right-click View
> Source. I can identify the names of text boxes, radio buttons, and
> the submit button caption.

That is all you need. Forms are submitted using a url that is made of the
page address and a ? and the id and value pairs delimited with & and =
characters. This is from memory, but the details are in any basic HTML
book.

> The submit action appears to be this:
> <FORM action="ViewReport.asp" method=Post target=_blank id=form1
> name=form1><strong>

There you go: the uri will look something like

http://somewhere.com/folder/viewreport.asp?name=tim%20F&age=21&hidden=true

and you need to use the POST method rather than the GET.

> Can any of this be useful to me?

All of it! FWIW, this is just what happens behind the scenes with search
toolbars etc.

Hope it helps: if you need any more in depth pointers, then you are
probably better off in an HTML forms group than a database one!

Tim F

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clueless John - 31 Aug 2005 14:54 GMT

Thanks! Those were the clues I needed.

Signature

I may not know yet, but I will.

> "=?Utf-8?B?Y2x1ZWxlc3MgSm9obg==?="
> <cluelessJohn@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
[quoted text clipped - 37 lines]
>
> Tim F

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clueless John - 01 Sep 2005 16:29 GMT

I also found another way
Set ieApp = CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application")

With ieApp
' Make the window visible.
.Visible = True

' Navigate to the input page.
.Navigate "http://.......asp"

' Loop while the page loads.
Do While .Busy: DoEvents: Loop
Do While .ReadyState <> 4: DoEvents: Loop

' Fill in the fields on the form.
' Form(0) refers to the first form on the page.
' the forms collection is Zero based.

With .Document.Forms(0)

' Click the Detail radio button (Summary is (0)).
.rpt(1).Click

' Set the dates.
.stdate.Value = sStart

.enddate.Value = sEnd

' Click Submit to run the report.
.submit

End With

Signature

I may not know yet, but I will.

> I posted this previously, but got no response. Am I even in the right place
> for this question?
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
>
> Does anyone have a clue for me?

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