I want to write a web scrapper / automated page-clicking desktop application, but with GUI for the end-user. The point is that a the user can go to some website, log in and then select the operations that he wants to automate through my application GUI. Such as writing a chat message or clicking a page automaticaly, the way they want. In the best cases without reaching out to any back-end.
I do not have direct access to the api of these pages.
I wanted the solution to be multi-platform (at least windows, macos) and for it to be a full-fledged product. So I have to generate some executable that someone will download, install and be ready to go.
I'm am thinking about using neutralino and puppeeter, but this is relatively new technology and there are no information how to plug in the testing automation tools. Is it even possible to create installable package without problems with chromium paths? Does anyone have a knowledge how to do it?
Thanks
Related
I am new to Xamarin and not sure if chose Xamarin.Forms to create a application for ios and android platform has a problem or not.
The application has some features below:
The application will be able to running some code in background without launching application by user.
The application can be launched by a href link or a notification.
The application is able to launch a builtin Camera application, and receive picture data from Camera application.
Thanks,
Bo
The features you are mentioning can be done with both. Actually, anything you can do on Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android can be done with Forms. Because Forms is only an abstraction layer for the UI which is installed by a NuGet package.
Now, having that said when to use Forms or when to use iOS/Android? It is mostly about UI. Are you going to do some advanced or platform specific stuff is is easier to implement that with the platform specific project.
If you UI will be the same in both platforms and mostly consists of some lists and input fields, then that is a very good candidate for a Forms project.
Notice how I said it is easier to do in the platform specific projects. Again here, you can do anything in Forms as well by the means of Custom Renderers, it is just a bit harder to do.
Ideally try it out yourself and see what suits you best.
In regard with your need to execute code in the background. This will be tricky and is very dependent on the platform that you're on. You will definitely have to write platform specific code for that for which you can use the DependencyService to abstract it to your shared code.
However like AlancLui mentioned executing code in the background isn't something that is easy to do on mobile. On iOS it is restricted to accessing location data or playing music, but still your app needs to be running (in the background). Android has something called Services for this, which makes it a bit easier.
My goal is to use adminLTE (adminLTE) interface in a corporate setting which allows for VBA scripts to run to automate task which my non-tech savy team can accomplish much quicker than by doing them by hand. (pre-filling emails, providing inventory information, creating and printing forms automatically, integrating with stamps.com, reference and display a lot of excel data). From my understanding, the execution of VBA scripts in a web browser is not allowed.
What are my options for accomplishing my goal?
Do this in an HTA file?
Am I wrong about web browser executions of VB scripts?
Do I need to build an application in Visual Studio?
I have a team of three which need to access this and share data, so it's not like an entire enterprise spread across the nation or anything like that. Thanks.
Any and all thoughts are welcome.
This question is pretty broad - it's the same as asing "what are my options for executing an arbitrary EXE on an end user's computer from a browser." The whole point of browser based applications is to prevent this from happening for security reasons.
If your goal is to deploy VBA scripts to everyone in your organization - that's actually pretty easy - just create an automatically updating Excel addin. This approach is very common and easy to do (more info if needed).
To answer your questions:
Too broad
Yes you can do this in a HTA file but I don't recommend it and I don't think it does what you want.
You cannot run VBA within a browser in the traditional sense. An HTA from what I understand is essentially a desktop app that is written using HTML i.e. you couldn't deploy an HTA to example.com.
You can build a ASP.NET web app in Visual Studio and have your front end (e.g. Admin LTE) call an end point on the backend which then calls an EXE but that would be an EXE on the server and not the client.
I want to build desktop application that will use node.js and express to "render" the gui in a browser.
Since the client will have access to my application, is there any easy method to embed everything in my exe ?
I don't like the idea of having so many folders in my application folder, this makes it easy for everyone to modify and steal the source code.
The two popular solutions for delivering web-based cross-platform applications are:
NW.js
Electron
I prefer NW.js because it has better backward compatibility, particularly on OS X. They have different feature sets, so you may want to play around with both to see which one meets your needs.
I am trying to understand classification/naming of scripts,
I havent found any software vocabulary online that I can read,
I have many scripts which my own, and from open sources.
I want to put my script to correct folders.
Whats difference between those concepts in practice?
Plugins are the complete programs and these can be installed in your system and can be used in browser whereas add-ons are not complete programs ,these are used to add functionality to your browser.
for example, Flash Player is a plugin which can be installed in your system as well in browser to play video,
InPrivate Filtering is an add-on which is used in some browser to provide privacy.
So, add-ons provide additional and limited functionality to your browser.
Does anyone know of any article/publication on the security architecture of Metro app?
For example, can the metro app call an external service. If it can,
under what condition. Will it prompt the user first? And if so will
they be able to change their restriction later and how?
Cross domain scripting in a website is usually considered a big
no-no. But if I were to turn the same code into a metro app (since
presumably they're both written in Html 5 + js), does it mean I can
make ajax calls to any server irrespective of their domain? Is it
even possible to port a website into an app? If so how easy is that?
What about accessing local file system? Or does it have to go
through the contracts to do so?
And this is kind of related but if I were to write a website (not an
app). And the site was opened using Metro IE10, can it subscribe
into the metro specific js events? I guess I'm trying to figure out
how to save cost by doing as little development as possible. I
prefer a website that can target multiple platforms and only target
specific platform for the features that absolutely require it - also
not to thrilled with the idea of having to go through microsoft in
order to publish my app.
Any help appreciated.
Metro applications can call into web services located on other machines, but their ability to interact with the local machine is severely limited.
Similarly, accessing arbitrary parts of the local filesystem is not permitted. If your application has the documents (or music or photos) library permission, it can access the files in those libraries.