I am currently using Python 3.2. I am planning to use PAMIE to simulate some webpages. Will that work? Is PAMIE the best way to simulate webpages with Python? If yes, What else do I need to run PAMIE? I don't see a lot of tutorials/Online help on PAMIE. Is it because it's not used widely? Please advise...
P.A.M.I.E. is not for simulating webpages, but for automating access to them. Since it requires Internet Explorer I would say that it almost per definition is not the best way to do it. It certainly can not be used much, and this is the first time I've heard of it after 10 years of Python web development.
A much more commonly used solution is Webdriver, which also supports both IE, Firefox and Chrome.
Another solution, if you don't need Javascript support, is to use mechanize. This doesn't control a web browser, but is an implementation of a "headless" web browser and can be good for making test suites.
Related
We have a classic ASP page that makes a request to another page on the same site to get data.
When debugging is turned on we get deadlock because the web server will only respond to one request at a time.
What is the best way to get around this limitation while still allowing us to debug it while developing?
Less than ideal options:
Move the page to another site.
Allow iis to use multiple processes.
Any other options?
Ah, the joys of Stackoverflow, where instead of getting answers you're criticized for using Classic ASP, which is a currently supported tool even though it's been around for 100 years. :-)
I ran into a similar problem a while back while trying to create a simple script that would mimic the behavior of a script located on another server. I wanted to do some debugging without invoking the real script, so I thought I'd make a brain-dead replacement for it on my own server and invoke it the same way.
I ended up giving up and using the real script for my debugging. But today I found this KB article for you that might help: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316451. I'm not sure but I think that's the solution. Or something like it.
Okay, here's a complicated one I've been breaking my head over all week.
I'm creating a self service system, which allows people to identify themselves by barcode or by smartcard, and then perform an arbitrary action. I run a Tomcat application container locally on each machine to serve up the pages and connect to external resources that are required. It also allows me to serve webpages which I then can use to display content on the screen.
I chose HTML as a display technology because it gives a lot of freedom as to how things could look. The program also involves a lot of Javascript to interact with the customer and hardware (through a RESTful API). I picked Javascript because it's a natural complement to HTML and is supported by all modern browsers.
Currently this system is being tested at a number of sites, and everything seems to work okay. I'm running it in Chrome's kiosk mode. Which serves me well, but there are a number of downsides. Here is where the problems start. ;-)
First of all I am petrified that Chrome's auto-update will eventually break my Javascript code. Secondly, I run a small Chrome plugin to read smartcard numbers, and every time the workstation is shutdown incorrectly Chrome's user profile becomes corrupted and the extension needs to be set up again. I could easily fix the first issue by turning off auto-update but it complicates my installation procedure.
Actually, having to install any browser complicates my installation procedure.
I did consider using internet explorer because it's basically everywhere, but with the three dominant versions out there I'm not sure if it's a good approach. My Javascript is quite complex and making it work on older versions will be a pain. Not even mentioning having to write an ActiveX component for my smartcards.
This is why I set out to make a small browser wrapper that runs in full screen, and can read smartcard numbers. This also has downsides. I use Qt: Qt's QtWebkit weighs a hefty 10MB, and it adds another number of dependencies to my application.
It really feels like I have to pick from three options that all have downsides. It really is something I should have investigated before I wrote the entire program. I guess it is a lesson learnt well.
On to the questions:
Is there a pain free way out of this situation? (probably not)
Is there a browser I can depend on without adding tens of megabytes to my project?
Is there another alternative you could suggest?
If you do not see another way out, which option would you pick?
I am planning to make an application that monitors the websites visited by the users and performs some calculations on that.
So for every website that is opened,I developed a google chrome extension that will send the URL to a NPAPI plugin.
The problem is with the second part.Is it possible for a NPAPI plugin to pass the information it received from the extension to another application.I want a 2 way communication between my application and the NPAPI plugin so that depending on the processing performed by the application,the NPAPI plugin informs the extension to change the URLS it should send.
PS-I am using firebreath to develop the NPAPI plugin if that makes it easier to answer my question.
I would really like some ideas as to how this can be implemented.I am new to programming.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
NPAPI plugins have unrestricted access to the local machine, so your plugin is running its code like any other application. So what you're looking for is actually a way for two processes to communicate, AKA Inter-Process Communication. There are quite a few ways of doing that, you can find some here. The most appropriate one depends on your actual need, but when searching, don't let the NPAPI context bother you. You're just trying to get two processes to talk.
Shared memory is quite simple to use. Since you're new to programming ,I think this is the way to go. You can find an example here
gud day!.
i am to develop a system that would simply list all URL accessed in a browser with its response time.
my probtion is alem is this applica standalone program(not a plug-in to a certain browser) written in c++. every time a user browse, the program then performs certain method.
so it is like, my program would listen to the browsers events. i dont know how to create an EVEN SINK implemetation for the above mention event in web browsers like Internet explorer, mozilla firefox and google chrome.
any suggestion, advise or idea i cant get from you for me to be able to start the development. any areas i need to focus in studying.
thanks alot for your time! hope for your response!:)
best regards!
The easiest way to achieve what you need is intercepting network traffic and extracting URLs from HTTP packets.
You can do this in many ways, e.g.:
using WinPCAP/libPCAP libarary
modifying LSP stack
intercepting winsock functions calls
If you're on the Windows platform, I think your best shot is using the MSAA interface, which is supported by all three browsers.
Documentation:
MSDN Overview and C++ API
Firefox statement of support for MSAA
Chrome
You could take a lower-level approach (such as an LSP), but they're much harder to debug.
I want build a search service for one particular thing. The data is freely available out there, via free classified services, and a host of other sites.
Are there any building blocks, e.g. open-source crawlers that I would customize - rather than build from scratch, that I can use?
Any advice on building such a product? Not just technical, but any privacy/legal things that I might need to take into consideration.
E.g. do I need to 'give credit' where the results are from and put a link to the original - if I get them from many places?
Edit: By the way, I am using GWT with JS for the front-end, haven't decided on the language for the back-end. Either PHP or Python. Thoughts?
There are few blocks in python you can use.
beautifulsoup [http://www.crummy.com/software/BeautifulSoup/] for parsing HTML. It can handle bad code too, and its API is veeery easy... way better than any DOM-like tool for me. My friend used it to scrape his old phpbb forum with success. It has pretty good docs.
mechanize [http://wwwsearch.sourceforge.net/mechanize/] is a webbrowser-simulating http client library. It handles cookies, filling forms and so on. Also easy to use, but it helps if you understand how does http work.
http://dev.scrapy.org/ -- this is a relatively new thing: a whole scraping framework based on twisted. I haven't played with it much.
I use first two for my needs; f.e. it needs 20 lines of code to get an automatic testing tool for a 3-stage poll, with simulation of waiting for user entering data and so on.
I made a screen-scraper in Ruby that took like five minutes. Apparently this dude has it down to 60 seconds! I'm not sure if Ruby is as scalable or fast as what you're looking for, but I've never seen a faster route to a proof-of-concept or a prototype.
The secret is a library called "hpricot", which was built for exactly this purpose.
I don't know anything about PHP or Python or what's available for those development systems/languages.
Good luck!