How can Watir be told to use a new or custom web browser, other than the conventional :opera, :ie, :chrome or :firefox?
For example
$browser = Watir::Browser.new :firedog
What's entailed in modifying the underlying Selenium driver class if, let's say, :firedog is really just a custom build* of Firefox, or Firefox with custom parameters? (*That way I can worry about embedding a webdriver addon into my custom ff separately.)
Hoping to avoid creating a new gem, just extend the required one(s) if possible, but not sure how to do that in the Ruby implementation.
This is likely something you need to ask the folks on the Selenium Webriver list. I've added the webdriver tag, but I'm not sure how many of them hang out here.
Once a driver is created (similar to chromedriver or operadriver I'd expect) and stuff works with webdriver, then it should work for anything built on top of it such as watir-webdriver.
If you purpose is just custom profiles, adding extensions, you are free to use already implemented API. In case you have custom Firefox build, you still may add WebDriver addon to it and just override binary path to Firefox.
This all is described at http://code.google.com/p/selenium/wiki/RubyBindings
Related
I have some Chrome extensions installed and I can use them fine in normal run.
But when I use Selenium to drive Chrome to a page, I see "Chrome is being controlled by automated test software." and I don't have access to those extensions that I have installed. What are some easy ways to have access to the extensions in this kind of scenario? Is there some setting in Chrome perhaps that enables extensions in every mode?
Yes, there are a series of flags you'r need to set up to achieve that.
You can also simply use Selenium-Profiles or undetected-chromedriver for that. Those libraries additionally are undetected by sites like cloudfare and google.
Background
I've been using the crx-hotreload package to auto-reload my chrome extensions during development because it's annoying to have to click the refresh button on the Extensions page every time you make a change; however, this package doesn't work with MV3 because it uses the chrome.runtime.getPackageDirectoryEntry method, which seems to have been removed from chrome.runtime in MV3. I can't find documentation to confirm that it was removed, but it's not there when I try to use it.
Questions
Does anyone know how to get access to all the files in the extension directory in Chrome Extension Manifest Version 3?
Or generally, is there a better way that I can hot-reload my chrome extensions during development that would work for MV3?
This is one of many things based on DOM capabilities of background pages that are removed from ManifestV3 because service workers don't have DOM. For example, getPackageDirectoryEntry is using the old nonstandard FileSystem API in its returned value.
As to why, apparently the switch to service workers simplifies the internal source code in Chromium, even if it doesn't provide any real improvements for extension authors or users.
At this point all you can do is present a convincing use case and ask Chromium developers via https://crbug.com to implement an alternative API.
I'm diving into the world of Chrome Extension development, primarily because there is a very small feature that is missing in Chrome that I miss dearly. The context-menu option to "Set as background/wallpaper" like that found in Firefox. Sounds trivial, but it's convenient.
I have most of the "basic" stuff worked out with the manifest file, am able to install it, even managed to get it to show up as a context menu item.
The problem obviously is that I am wanting to mess with a user's OS-level settings which is extremely difficult because of security issues (fully understand this).
I found an extension that allowed this in older versions of Chrome, and it looked like the developer used some type of .dll and C++ to accomplish this.
I'm not really sure how to make this work.
Since that Chrome doesn't allow these kind of manipulations (such as your PC's settings), you will need to create a native application that will run beside your extension. When the user chooses the image from your extension and selects "use as wallpaper", you will use the native messaging API to send a message to your desktop application, that will set the wallpaper (and do whatever else you can't do within a chrome extension) for you.
You can use the chrome.wallpaper app api to set the wallpaper after using the messaging api to send the image from your extension.
I would like to know if it's possible to develop an extension that allows to open a link with another browser : If in Chrome I click on a link that is configured in such extension, it opens FF or IE with this link.
I didn't find any extension (except extension that have a frame in a chrome tab), so does that mean that there is a technical limitation to do that ?
Best regards
I did something for FF what could be modified to do just that.
I have used the ability to execute shell commands from an extension, and configured the call to launch a 3rd party application.
Look for examples on nsIProcess
In chrome you can use the NPAPI plugins: http://code.google.com/chrome/extensions/npapi.html
Unfortunately, I think that kms is correct in saying that you cannot execute native code in a Chrome Extension, and must therefore pair your extension with an NPAPI Plugin and have them talk to one another. It was one of the most difficult programming tasks I've ever done, although the NPAPI Plugin was made easier by basing it on FireBreath, so at least I didn't need to write very much C++.
UPDATE: Since 2014 or so, Native Messaging is included in Chrome's Web Extensions API and, mercifully, NPAPI is gone.
I want to create a new application (which I will sell) that uses web browser control to automatically post things on the internet etc.
I did some research, and it looks like the primary choice for most people is .NET webbrowser control (via an instance of IE).
I don't want to do this because I want customers that own a Mac and Linux to be able to use my software.
With that said, are there any web browser control classes or toolkits available that can work on all OSes (e.g. something that uses Java?)
Thanks in advance!
UPDATE:
Web browser control is basically the ability for a program to act like a human and open a web browser and go to websites, fill out forms, check email (lol) etc.
Firefox, Chrome, Safari. I think virutally everything but IE works on all the OS's. Not suprising really when you think it's made by microsoft.
Selenium libraries let you create scripts (with a GUI or one of the supported languages [it has got most of the popular ones like Java, Python etc.]) for browser automation on all popular browsers (including chrome, which works on all OSes like mentioned by other answers).