I am new to the world of programming so I am trying to make a simple login script that will log me in to target.com when ran! Eventually I will want to add other things to it but I can’t seem to figure out the best way to do this. Any tips would be appreciated!
Using a tool like Puppeteer or Selenium can be used to automate browser tasks.
The basic idea is to use the tool to navigate to the website url, then while on the page you have to get references to the DOM elements you want to interact with. Once you do that you can use the tool to simulate events like clicking, typing etc.
However, logging in to sites like Target using scripts poses issues because they have ways to guard against automated scripts accessing their site. Some defenses include setting up Captchas and examining request headers.
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So there is a problem with JavaScript and requests (in Python) and that is, it does not use JavaScript when requesting a webpage.
The website I'm working with (https://access.paylocity.com/) requires JavaScript and without it, it changes the content of the page to just a text at the top saying, "Please enable JavaScript to view the page content."
(I could be wrong here but) I think one solution is the use of Selenium, but that would replace requests which I'm fine with as long as there are no other ways of fixing/bypassing this JavaScript detection.
(For those wondering, this python project of mine is supposed to automatically fetch the events on the Paylocity calendar, then port those events to another calendar that I frequently use everyday. It's also just intended for myself.)
Edit: Here is the code I have if that will help https://pastecode.io/s/GXTUO1BgtR (I didn't know where to paste my code, so I decided on that website. If I should change it, please comment or say something about it.)
Since the website you're working with is dynamically loading the JS as far I can tell, I think you have no other choice as to making use of Selenium. I had a project on my own a couple weeks ago and run into a similar problem which I could also solve using Selenium. But, I'm no expert, I'm just giving away my thoughts on this.
Alright, so I'm in a small pickle. I'm running into issues with JSoup since the page needs Javascript to to finish loading some of the page. Fortunately, I've worked around it in the past (parsed the raw javascript code), and it's very tedious. As of late, I tried to make a program to login to a website but it requires a token from a element. That form element is not visible unless JavaScript is executed, so it wont show up at all for me to even extract. So I decided to look into Selenium.
First question, is this the library I should be looking into? The reason why I'm so bent on using HttpClient is because some of these websites are very high in traffic and doesn't load up all the way BUT I don't need these pages to load up all the way. I just need it to load up enough to where I can retrieve the login token. I prefer to communicate with the webserver with raw JSON/POST methods once I discover the the methods required vs. having Selenium automate a click/wait/type sequence.
Basically, I only need selenium to load up 1/4 of the page, just to retrieve request tokens. The rest of my program will send POST methods using HttpClient.
Or should I just let selenium do all the work? My goal is speed. I need to login, purchase an item fast.
Edit: Actually, I might go with HtmlUnit because it's very minimal. I only need to scrape information, and I don't want to run Selenium's StandAlone Server. Is this the better approach?
Basically, HtmlUnit is quicker than Selenium so if you are going for speed you should use that. Anyway, keep in mind that Selenium has its own implementation of HtmlUnitDriver. So, as another option, you could use Selenium with HtmlUnit. The difference between them is that HtmlUnit is a browser itself without GUI, meanwhile Selenium works calling browsers feature. You may want to take a look at this other question for further details: Selenium vs HtmlUnit?
There is a website that I visit often... let's call it www.example.com. And, I am able to interact with parts of this website. The interactions send XMLHttpRequest and get a response back through Javascript, jQuery I believe.
I'm not sure what technology will let me achieve what I want to do, and where to start. Basically, I want to add additional options/shortcuts that the site does not provide. I thought about maybe using a macro, but trying to use macro recording software is just a pain in the butt.
I inspected (using Google Chrome's Developer Tools) the XMLHttpRequest being sent back and forth and I noticed that it is simple JSON messages. I figured the best way to add enhancements to the site without waiting for the actual owners of the site to do so would be to simulate the website sending/recieving these XMLHttpRequest/Response and making additional adjustments to the DOM to provide extra shortcuts.
I don't want to interfere with the original site's functionality though... ie if I send a request and receive a response I want both the original script and my script to process the response. So, here is where I'm stuck... I'm not sure whether to go along the paths of creating a C# application or a Google Chrome extension (I use Google Chrome) or something else alltogether. Any pointers on what dev tools/languages will give me the ability to do what I want would be great. Thanks!
Chrome has built in support for user scripts. You can use these to modify the page as you see fit and also to make requests. Without more details regarding what exactly you want to do with these AJAX request it's hard to advise further.
I'm not 100% sure what your question is, but as I understand it, you want to be able to make changes to a certain website. If these changes can be done with js, i would recommend Greasemonkey for Firefox. It basically lets you run a custom script when you are visiting a certain webpage/domain. You can be as specific as you want about which pages use the script. Once your script loads jQuery, it is really easy to add any functionality.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/greasemonkey/
You can find pre-written scripts for tons of sites here:
http://userscripts.org/
I started looking at FBJS to build some complex application that has to be within a tab on a fan page. Since my first option of using iframes are out till Facebook puts that functionality in, I have to resort to using the sanitized FBJS.
I was wondering if anyone has done really complicated apps using FBJS? Besides DOM manipulations, how does it stack up against the usual JS?
I looked at the documentation online on the developers page, but all the samples there seem pretty basic. For example, I would need to access ActiveXControls/plugins, generate iframe on the fly and then append content into the iframe, etc. Does anyone think this would be doable in FBJS?
If you need to access custom ActiveXControls you won't be able to do it in FBJS. FBJS obscures global variables so you can't access them. I'm pretty sure that Facebook allows iframe applications in tabs on fan pages though. How are you adding the content?
I'm connecting to a web site, logging in.
The website redirects me to new pages and Mechanize deals with all cookie and redirection jobs, but, I can't get the last page. I used Firebug and did same job again and saw that there are two more pages I had to pass with Mechanize.
I took a quick look at the pages and saw that there is some JavaScript and HTML code but couldn't understand it because it doesn't look like normal page code. What are those pages for? How they can redirect to other pages? What should I do to pass these?
If you need to handle pages with Javascript, try WATIR or Selenium - those drive a real web browser, and can thus handle any Javascript. WATIR Classic requires either IE or Firefox with a certain extension installed, and you will see the pages flash on the screen as it works.
Your other option would be understanding what the Javascript on the offending page does and bypassing it manually, but that seems onerous.
At present, Mechanize doesn't handle JavaScript. There's talk of eventually merging Johnson's capabilities into Mechanize, but until that happens, you have two options:
Figure out the JavaScript well enough to understand how to traverse those pages.
Automate an actual browser that does understand JavaScript using Watir.
what are those pages for? how they can redirect to other pages. what should i do to pass these?
Sometimes work is done on those pages. Sometimes the JavaScript is there to prevent automated access like what you're trying to do :). A lot of websites have unnecessary checks to make sure you have a "good" browser, so make sure that your user_agent is set to something common, like IE. Sometimes setting the user_agent to look like an old browser will let you get past without JavaScript.
Website automation is fun because you have to outsmart the website and its software developers, using multiple strategies. Like the others said, Watir is the best tool for getting past JavaScript at the moment.