I have spied an input text box using the Application Modeller of Blue Prism and was able to successfully highlight the text box using the below XPath:
/HTML/BODY(1)/DIV(4)/main(1)/DIV(1)/DIV(1)/DIV(1)/DIV(2)/DIV(1)/DIV(1)/DIV(2)/IFRAME(1)/HTML/BODY(1)/DIV(2)/FORM(1)/DIV(3)/TABLE(2)/TBODY(1)/TR(1)/TD(1)/DIV(1)/DIV(1)/DIV(1)/DIV(2)/DIV(1)/DIV(1)/DIV(1)/DIV(1)/DIV(1)/DIV(1)/DIV(1)/DIV(1)/DIV(1)/SPAN(1)/DIV(1)/DIV(2)/DIV(1)/DIV(1)/DIV(1)/DIV(1)/DIV(1)/TABLE(1)/TBODY(1)/TR(1)/TD(1)/INPUT(1)
I wanted to use a more robust XPath and to achieve that I was trying to use the below XPath:
//*[#id="CT"]/div/div/div/div[1]/div[1]/table/tbody[1]/tr/td/input[1]
The above XPath was identifying the element correctly in Chrome but was getting the below error message when trying the same in Blue Prism:
Error - Highlighting results - Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
Let me know if I am doing anything incorrectly.
Sorry for replying to a pretty old one! The workaround we've devised for this scenario (where making the path dynamic requires too long of a loop / search) is to use Jquery snippets. If the page is using jquery it is trivial to execute these queries very quickly using the blue prism capability of executing javascript functions.
And we put in an enhancement request, because it'd be supremely useful functionality.
Update: As a user points out below, the vanilla js querySelector method is probably safer and more future proof than using jquery if it is possible to be used.
Blue Prism does not fully support the XPath spec; alas the construct you're attempting to use here won't work.
Alternatively, you can set the Path attribute of an application modeler entry to be Dynamic, which allows you to insert dynamic parameters from the process/object level to pinpoint elements you'd like to interact with.
Unfortunately Blue Prism doesn't actually use "real" XPaths, but only an extremely limited subset: Absolute paths without wildcards. (Note: It is technically possible to match the XPath to a string with wildcards, but this seemingly causes BP to check every single element in the document, and is so slow it is almost never the right solution.)
For cases where an element can't be robustly identified via the BP application modeler (maybe because it requires complex or dynamic selectors), my workaround is to inject a JS snippet. JS can select elements much more reliably, and it can then generate the BluePrism path for that element.
Returning data from JS to BluePrism is not trivial, but one of the nicer solutions is to have JS create a <script id="_output"> element, put JSON inside it, then have BluePrism read the contents of this element.
Related
I'm newest in web.
I want customize default scroll-bar in ag-grid. I try use ngx-scrollbar for this. In sources ngx-scrollbar I found that ngx-scrollbar using ng-content for wrapping elements(link to github source file). If wrap ag-grid-angular element then scrolling even doesn't shows because content doesn't overflow ag-grid-angular content because oveflow happen in div with class .ag-body-viewport where using stock srolls. In order to achieve needed effect I wish pass DOM element with class .ag-body-viewport to ng-content of ngx-scrollbar. Is it possible?
More info here github issue but I don't use Nice Scroll or Perfect Scrollbar
I want use ngx-scrollbar because it has capability of customization.
UPDATE
I can pass DOM element to ng-content using next sintax(agGridViewport is native element):
<ng-scrollbar>
{{ agGridViewport }}
<ng-scrollbar>
but it pass element like a copy of real DOM object but I want pass this like a refence.
Now I got UI like a stack style:
[rendered real ag-grid-angular]
[rendered ng-scrollbar with his content]
But it isn't that I need. Also I got bad rendering with artifacts and even some components doesn't appear. Now I want to try use Renderer2 for putting ng-scrollbar element between two DOM elements in tree(.ag-body-viewport-wrapper and .ag-body-viewport). But I think it's very bad idea because Renderer2 doesn't have methods for putting elements between DOM elements in tree and my code will be very unlify and complicated :( It's must be like injection.
No, I can not do injection in DOM with Angular tools. It's bad idea do it and it is not possible now. AgGrid doesn't support customization with tools like ngx-scrollbar which using ng-content for wrapping components and other elements. May be better way using other tools which working by another way or using webkit customization which supports not all web browsers.
UPDATE
Also I try to use smooth-scrollbar. I managed to get better result. I bind him to element .ag-body-viewport. It works fine but it scrolling only content of grid without header be careful. smooth-scroll bar doesn't have options for horizontal and vertical scrollbar as a different units. I know how issue can be solve. Vertical scrollbar must be bind to .ag-body-viewport and horizaontal scrollbar must be bind to .ag-root. If your can find scrollbar which let you do it that you can solve this problem. May be I write special component for Angular in near future and then add link to this answer. If you do it faster you can add yourself link or you can add link to already existing packages.
My application under test has been developed by external suppliers so I have no control over the HTML structure. The application is extremely Javascript and Ajax heavy, with numerous dynamically generated buttons and auto-complete lists.
In other words, the characteristics of the pages are that they are filled with:
Elements with no fixed IDs (IDs are generated on the fly and have
numbers or other text dynamically added to them)
The same happens with some classes
Most of the times the buttons have no text associated with them since they are either custom coded 'down' arrows for lookup lists
(which aren't lookup lists but hidden divs) or '+' and '-' icons to
maximise or minimise portions of the content. -
It is therefore very difficult to identify these elements, especially the buttons.
I am trying to write a generic 'I click on the button near y' type of step so that it is not necessary to hardcode each and every button (assuming I can even get something to identify them with) into each and every test.
The thinking behind this is that normally there is a label of some sort close to the button at least.
What I want to to is to find the text label, then see if there is a button inside the same scope, and if there is not, move 'back' through the parent elements, and check if there is a button inside the scope of each parent level, up to 5 parents.
There might be all sorts of problems with this approach but I am just curious to see if this will work in general. I have run into some problems.
First I tried to use Xpaths, so I got the Xpath of the parent through :
$parentelement = $element->getParent();
$parentXpath->getXpath();
This would give me an Xpath of : (//html//span[text()='Cost center'])[1] and moving up through the parent elements all the time, they would become successively:
(//html//span[text()='Cost center'])[1]/..[1]
(//html//span[text()='Cost center'])[1]/..[1]/..[1]
and so forth.
The actual button is located in: (//html//span[text()='Cost center'])[1]/..[1]/..[1]//button but it has to go through all the parent elements in order to get there, so it will start with (//html//span[text()='Cost center'])[1]//button and should end with (//html//span[text()='Cost center'])[1]/..[1]/..[1]//button where it should find the button.
Trying to use Xpath I used:
$button_element = $session->getPage()->find('xpath',$parentXpath."//button")
I soon saw that the 'find' command appends an //html to the front of your xpath string so the Xpath that it tried to use ended up being (for each parent Xpath, but using this one as an example):
(//html(//html//span[text()='Cost center'])[1]/..[1])
I then stripped out the brackets as well as the //html, leaving me with:
//span[text()='Cost center'][1]/..[1]
but when I tried:
$button_element = $session->getPage()->find('xpath',$strippedParentXpath."//button")
I got the following error:
SyntaxError: Failed to execute 'evaluate' on 'Document': The string '(//html//span[text()='Cost center'][1]/..[1]//button)[1]' is not a valid XPath expression
However, Firepath can execute this expression and does not show a syntax error for it, although it does not find the actual button (since the button is actually located one level up, where Firepath DOES find it).
So my question 1 is: What is wrong with my Xpath that I can't use it in the find? It actually looks as if //span[text()='Cost center'][1]//button does not throw the same exception, since as I said, I am looping through the parent Xpaths, and it starts with //span[text()='Cost center'][1]//button. It crashes on //span[text()='Cost center'][1]/..[1]//button.
My second option was to get the parent element each time, starting with finding the text on the page, but then to search for a button inside the scope of the parent element using the findbutton functionality.
Looping through the parent elements (up to a maximum of 5):
$parentelement = $parentelement->getParent();
$butonelement = $parentelement->findbutton('xxx');
In other words, find ANY button in the scope of the parent element. The problem I have is how to specify a generic 'button'.
One has to associate SOME text with the button (depicted by the 'xxx' above).
But this is a typical example of buttons in the application:
<button class="autocomplete_button" type="button" id="button_OM_1"> </button>
Where the class is used more than once, and the ID is auto-generated and not the same number all the time. There is no text associated with the button since the class specifies an image.
Question 2: So how can I use 'findbutton' to generically find a 'button' no specific distinguishing characteristics? Please note that I actually did try findbutton("button"), taking the chance that there might be a 'button' somewhere in a button, but this did not work either. At least, it doesn't work consistently and by that I mean that the same test randomly seems to either find or not find the same button when I run the test a couple of times.
After doing some more investigation on this issue I have found the following:
My method of trying to find the closest button to a piece of text via traversing 'up' through the scope of the divs and spans around the text (using xpath) is actually working.
What is NOT working is SAHI, which I am using as the web driver. In other words, it is not a Behat/Mink problem, it is SAHI specific issue.
I tried the same code using Selenium2 and it executes perfectly.
I still require an answer to question 2 - how can I use findbutton() without a specific parameter such as the ID, name or value but I will see if I can find an answer to that question separately and on the Behat user group since I do think that is a Behat/Mink specific issue.
I normaly use css selector and with that, I use to navigate to the class and ID's that the button is inside. it is easier than xpath I think, like you can use
$this->getSession ()->getPage ()->find ( 'css', '.parrent1 .parrent2 .autocomplete_button ' );
I think this will help you as you know which button your gonna use in each scenario
Having no luck here trying to find a solution to this.
I've set up a looping selector based on this guide. (I also used the ListLoopingDataSource class in Part 2 in order to have strings in my looping list).
What I want to be able to do is then change another element (an image box/placeholder) on my layout, based on what is currently selected in the looping selector.
No real idea how to do this, the onSelectionChanged event is kind of abstracted and not really useful? I'm not sure how to programmatically change images either, it doesn't look like I can access a resource from the code base, only from the xaml.
Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
I found that I could do this by using binding.
I want to retrieve the xpath of an attribute (example "brand" of a product from a retailer website).
One way of doing it is using addons like xpather or xpath checker to firefox, opening up the website using firefox and right clicking the desired attrbute I am interested in. This is ok. But I want to capture this information for many attributes and right clicking each and every attribute maybe time consuming. Also, the other problem I have is that attributes I maybe interested in will be there for one product. The other attributes maybe for some other product. So, I will have to go that product & then do it manually again.
Is there an automated or programatic way of retrieving the xpath of the desired attributes from a website rather than having to do this manually?
You must notice that not all websites use valid XML that you can use xpath on...
That said, you should check out some HTML parsers that will allow you to use xpath on HTML even if it is not a valid XML.
Since you did not specify the technology you are working with - I'll suggest the .NET HTML Agility Pack, if you need others, search for questions dealing with this here on SO.
The solution I use for this kind of thing is to write an xpath something like this:
//*[text()="Brand"]/following-sibling::*
//*[text()="Color"]/following-sibling::*
//*[text()="Size"]/following-sibling::*
//*[text()="Material"]/following-sibling::*
It works by finding all elements (labels) with the text you want and then looking to the next sibling in the HTML. Without a specific URL to see I can't help any further.
This is a generalised version you can make more specific versions by replacing the asterisks is tag types, and you can navigate differently by replacing the axis following sibling with something else.
I use xPaths in import.io to make APIs for this kind of thing all the time, It's just a matter of finding a xPath that's generic enough to find the HTML no matter where it is on the page, but being specific enough to get the right data.
I have a web page loaded up in the browser (i.e. its DOM and element positioning are both accessible to me) and I want to find the block element (or a sorted list of these elements), which likely contains the most content (as in a continuous block of text). The goal is to exclude things like menus, headers, footers and such.
This is my personal favorite: VIPS: a Vision-based Page Segmentation Algorithm
First, if you need to parse a web page, I would use HTMLAgilityPack to transform it to an XML. It will speed everything and will enable you, using a simple XPath to go directly to the BODY.
After that, you have to run on all the divs (You can get all the DIV elements in a list from the agility pack), and get whatever you want.
There's a simple technique to do this,based on analysing how "noisy" HTML is, i.e., what is the ratio of markup to displayed text through an html page. The Easy Way to Extract Useful Text from Arbitrary HTML describes this tex, giving some python code to illustrate.
Cf. also the HTML::ContentExtractor Perl module, which implements this idea. It would make sense to clean the html first, if you wanted to use this, using beautifulsoup.
I would recommend Vit Baisa's thesis on Web Content Cleaning, I think he has some code too, but I can't find a link for it. There is also a discussion of the very same problem on the natural language processing LingPipe blog.