Automating web page entry

Is there a way of automating the opening of web pages and entering data into webpage entry boxes from a Panorama X file?

The short answer is not really.

If you opened the web page using a Web Browser object in a form, you could theoretically use the JavaScript/Panorama bridge to do it, but it would require a lot of reverse engineering of the particular web page, and would break if the web page changed.

You might also be able to do it with AppleScript and Safari, but again it would be a big reverse engineering project.

If you just want to submit a single web form, and the web page doesn’t rely on JavaScript, this can be done with posturl (there is both a function and statement). This has been done to look up stock prices, zip codes, etc. Again, however, it requires reverse engineering of the web page involved.

So, the long answer is maybe, depending on the web site and your reverse engineering skills.

Thank you, Jim. My reverse engineering skills are minimal, but I am quite a good plodder.

This is exactly the problem that broke the Zip+4 functions.

Concerning the JavaScript/Panorama bridge, I have searched everything I can think of, and the only helpful reference I’ve found is in the Web Browser Object documentation. At the end of the page is the following:

The last link seems to be broken: Web Browser Object

I had hoped to find JS statements or functions like applescript and python(, but found nothing apart from eight JSON statements/ functions.

That is because this hasn’t been written yet. This is going to be a very time consuming page to write, mostly because of the complexity of setting up demo examples to be used in the explanations. It’s quite likely that this won’t be written until sometime in 2019. Also, I will probably want to refresh my own JavaScript skills before writing this, I haven’t written any significant JavaScript in quite a few years. In any case, whatever I do write will not teach you JavaScript, you’ll need to learn that elsewhere, there are tons of books, web sites, Lynda.com courses, etc. for that. The learning curve for that is going to far exceed what you need to know about Panorama on that topic.

There is a simple example of this bridge in the Web Browser session of the Intensive Training Course, as I recall this takes up a significant portion of this session. If you have sufficient JavaScript skills, I think this session does give you the information needed, though with minimal examples.

Perhaps now it is more clear why I said “the short answer is not really”. This is definitely not an advertised feature of Panorama.

Thanks once more, Jim. I had been able to find many JavaScript lessons on the web but I didn’t explore your Web Browser session as I should have thought to do. I’ve found it now.