I am searching for a way to close a Javascript pop-up/message box (i.e. not a NEW IE window, but a scripted alert()) that loads when a webpage is loaded.
I currently have code that loads data into a search form, runs the search, retrieves the needed information from the results, exits the search, then continues with the next item in a list. In some cases, there is a piece of critical information missing from the search results. When this happens, the JavaScript on the page pops up the message when the page loads, letting the user know that info is missing. With the automation the code halts(waits) for the box to clear before continuing, and the user must click on the OK button before this will happen.
(I have no way to change the source script of the page directly, as that is outside of my scope of responsibility here at work. Plus, it is more important to retain this functionality for general use; it would really only benefit this small-usage function I'm creating.)
While I can't change the source script, I have found an example of how to prevent a pop-up/alert from displaying by changing the loaded script. However, it relates to an already-loaded page and doesn't really work for me (as far as I can tell).
IE.Document.getElementById("clearRelItems").removeAttribute "onClick"
IE.Document.getElementById("clearRelItems").setAttribute "onClick", "return true;"
Is it possible to use this method to make a change before the page has fully loaded? i.e. can this be used to somehow bypass/circumvent the function call at page load?
I know about sendkeys, but I would prefer to avoid this option if at all possible (I may end up using this option if no other alternative exists). This function is intended to be initiated by the user, then left running in the background as it will take some time to complete.
I have looked into grabbing the XML as suggested by #Kyle, but I don't believe I am proficient enough to make this method work.
How else might I get around the alert? Is there a way to actually activate the OK button on the alert? Can the alert/loading of the page be bypassed any other way?
One work-around could be to recognize when your script is stuck and then just send the keystroke "enter" to close the pop-up.
Have you had a look at using the MS XML classes for posting the data directly and parsing the result? This is much faster than IE automation although admittedly not always possible
Edit: Not really, we're just using the classes to handle the request and response, we don't actually use XML, I put this together for someone a while back to give you an idea:
Sub GetDataXML()
Dim strPostText As String, strResponse As String
Dim Pressure As Double, Temperature As Double
Dim XMLrequest As Object
Pressure = CDbl(InputBox("Enter the Pressure"))
Temperature = CDbl(InputBox("Enter the Temperature"))
strPostText = "lang=english&calc=standard&druck=" & Pressure & "&druckunit=1&temperatur=" & Temperature & "&tempunit=1&Submit=Calculate"
Set XMLrequest = CreateObject("MSXML2.XMLHTTP")
With XMLrequest
.Open "POST", "http://www.peacesoftware.de/einigewerte/calc_co2.php5", False
.setRequestHeader "Content-type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
.send (strPostText)
Do: DoEvents: Loop Until .readyState = 4
strResponse = .responseText
.abort
End With
Debug.Print strResponse
End Sub
It is even easier if you are using a query table in excel as this handles any parsing of the data.
Does the above help you?
Related
I need create probably an uncommon thing, so I haven't found any guide, and thats why I would like to ask here:
I am creating an interface for a site, which is being created by ajax loading its parts.
My web interface can accept an URL parameter as an input. If there is the parameter, my site changes its behavior (loads the page + content by value of that parameter and show it at specified place).
But, at some point, I have to get rid of the parameter.
Especially, if someone reloads the page, I want to show the cleanly loaded web page, not the content - but the parameter is still there whie pressing F5
So, my code - which is not working, looks simply like that:
//EDIT: Thanks to #charlietfl. I have here an unload event, which figures in ways like "I want to go to another page by url adress bar"
Same problem, jsut need to change it just and only to RELOAD page event.
//we are here: http://example.com/?docId=1
$(window).bind('beforeunload',function(){
//window.location.replace("http://example.com");
window.location.href = "http://example.com";
});
Know two things:
1) $(window).bind works well, with simple alert in it.
2) window.location.replace("http://example.com"); works well too, if fired at some other event, like key press (for my testing)
What I am trying to achieve, is to "skip" the reload by redirecting.
Aaaand one more thing. I know about HTML5 syntax changing the url without reloading the page (change->reload->done), but I can't use it, because of compatibility needed with older browsers.
Well, plase, any tips? Thanks in advance :)
I have an ASP.NET MVC3 application running in a factory intranet. Factory uses Internet Explorer and end users are a little bit impatient. In a page where I'm adding a new object to database, Explorer doesn't respond quickly and users re-press the add button, hence the same object is inserted twice. I'm thinking of ways to prevent it.
I've written a script that makes the button invisible after it's pressed, but I want to make it just not-working. Is there such a javascript function or a server-side implementation that makes submit button doesn't work?
"Not working" clientside:
I would say disabling
document.getElementById("btnAdd").disabled = true;
is a little more safe than just making it invisible. On top of that, consider adding a loading animation in the form of a GIF from http://www.ajaxload.info/ so that the user knows they have to wait.
Ideally, you'd be making ajax calls and could re-enable the button if the action failed or returns a message.
Worst case scenario, you could remove the button from the page altogether, but that's not a very good idea if the action fails and the user will need to press it again.
"Not working" serverside:
On the database level, catch and reject duplicates (to your criteria) to ensure that even if they do slip one past, you don't end up with duplicate data.
I'm doing some tests on a wicket prototype here, and I got stuck on this little issue.
I have an AjaxTabbedPanel within a page, with 5 tabs. It's working ok so far but I'd like to add some behavior BEFORE the new tab request has been processed (e.g do some validation and storing something on session before the tab changes).
AjaxTabbedPanel let me override the onAjaxUpdate(final AjaxRequestTarget target) but this one takes place AFTER the new tab has been set. I'd need something like "beforeAjaxRequest".
Is there any way of doing this without changing things around too much? (Sticking with AjaxTabbedPanel, no JS, etc). You might think "why don't you load the whole page at once and navigate with JS tabs", but I'm trying to work on a native wicket tab solution for now (there are reasons for that).
Thanks in advance!
Try overriding the newLink(String linkId, final int index); method. Thats what an AjaxTabbedPanel does when it extends TabbedPanel to add the ajax behaviour http://www.jarvana.com/jarvana/view/wicket/wicket-extensions/1.2/wicket-extensions-1.2-sources.jar!/wicket/extensions/ajax/markup/html/tabs/AjaxTabbedPanel.java?format=ok.
You could set up the newlink so it uses the same code as the ajaxtabbedpanel but adds a validation clause so when a user clicks it, it validates first and then decides whether to change the tab and update.
Hope that helps.
I am trying to figure out the best way to acompish "unobtrusive" forms for a user (within a web app).
The purpose: keep user on the site by not asking to fill unnecessary form in. Ask for the details as only when such are needed.
The requrements are:
User should provide additional details only when it is required (email to receive notifications, login required for account page, save credit card details when checking out).
User should not leave the current page providing the additional details.
The implementation would be fairly easy if all requests would be AJAX ones. It would be easy to analyse the response (401 or so) and show the appropriate lightbox-form.
I do not see how it can be done "the right way" with plain anchors and form submits as in both cases the user actually leaves the page (by following the link or submitting a form) and there is no way to analyse the response on the client side.
Converting all links and forms to AJAX ones would be just silly.
The closest analog to what I want to achieve is the default Basic Authentication dialog in most of the browser. But obviously that just doesn't fit my requirements.
Any creative suggestions how to do that for non-AJAX requests?
Regards,
Dmytrii.
In a page sense, where "page" refers to what the user sees and not what the URL is, I only can think of following ways to update independent parts in a page with JavaScript (and thus Ajax) switched off:
Frames
Iframes
Using held-open connections there are two more ways to update a page, however these do not work reliably in all cases:
Animated GIF
CSS DIV tags with absolute positioning.
Note that this needs that your Server can keep open a session for each person looking at the page, which can be thousands. If this does not work the only possible workaround is with FRAMEs and automatic refresh, which is somewhat clumsy.
As I think that you do not want to use Frames and you do not want to render animated GIFs, I explain the CSS DIV way:
When you load the page you do not finish loading it. Instead the connection is kept open by the web server and the script handling the connection waits for additional information to arrive. When there is additional data, this is sent to the browser by encapsulating it into additional DIV tags which can overwrite other parts of the page.
Using "style" in the DIV tag and CSS position:absolute these can overwrite other information on the page like a new layer. However you need either position:absolute or must add this data to the end of the page.
How does this work with forms?
Forms usually have a known size so you can put them into IFRAMEs. These IFRAMEs get submitted to the webserver. The script there notifies the other script that new data must be output, so the waiting script renders the response and displays it in the page while the script which took the submit redisplays the form with fresh values only.
How does this work with 404 and anchors?
I don't really know because this must be tested, but here is a hint how I would try to implement this:
We have 2 issues here.
First the URL must not point to other pages but back to a server script again, so the href is under control. This script then notifies the waiting script to update the page accordingly, for example by retrieving the page and sending it to your browser. The script can check for 404 as well.
Second you must hinder the browser to switch the page when clicking on the anchor. This probably involves some clever tricks using CSS, target and server side status codes (like "gone" or redirect to the current page, whatever) to keep the browser from switching the page. I am not completely sure if that works, but if you remember download pages, these show URLs which do not switch the page but have an effect (downloading the file). That's where to start to try to hack browsers not leaving the current page without using JavaScript.
One idea not followed here is not keeping the connection of the page open but the CSS file and send new css information to the browser which then "fills in empty stubs" using the CSS way. But I doubt that this works very well, most browsers probably will parse the CSS only after loading finished, but perhaps I am wrong.
Also note that keeping a connection open never finishes the page loading, so you will see the busy-logo spinning all the time, which is unavoidable with this technique.
Having said this all I doubt you get around JavaScript.
What I wrote here is very difficult to do and therefor usually is not used because it scales badly. And it is a lot more difficult than using JavaScript alone (that's why I explained it).
With proper AJAX it is much more easy to reach your goal. Also note that you do not need to change your page source much, all you need is to add a script which augments the page content such, that for example forms suddenly use AJAX instead of a direct POST with re-rendering the page. Things which cannot be detected easily then need some hints in the tags such that the tag scanner knows how to handle the tag. The good thing then is, that with JavaScript switched off your page still works - however it then "leaves the page".
Normal HTML just was not designed to create application-like web pages like we want to see today. This all was added using JavaScript.
About popup forms
The Basic-Auth-Handler reloads the page after the user enters something into this dialog, only if cancel is hit the current page is displayed.
But there are two ways to present additional query-popups in a page using JavaScript:
The first one is the javascript "prompt", like in following example:
http://de.selfhtml.org/javascript/objekte/anzeige/window_prompt_vor.htm
(Click on the "Hier").
The second one is "JavaScript forms" which are like popups within an HTML-page.
However I consider popups to be far too intrusive and bad design.
Ajax and JavaScript is the easiest way
Unfortunately using JavaScript is never easy, but if you think JavaScript is improper or too difficult, there is no other technique which is easier, that's why JavaScript is used everywhere.
For example your page onload-Script can cycle through all Anchor-Tags and modify them such, that clicking on them invokes a function. This function then must do something clever.
Same is true for Forms. Fields which can be modified (like the user's eMail address) then have two views, on is visible, the other one hidden. The hidden one is a form. Clicking on the eMail address then switches the view (disables the first div and enables the second), such that suddenly instead of the eMail address a text form field is there containing the eMail address. If you click on the "OK" button the button changes the look into a spinner until the data is submitted, then the view switches back to the normal one.
That's the usual way to do it using JavaScript and Ajax. And this involves a lot of programming until it works well.
Sorry for not shortening this post and missing code snippets, I am currently lacking time ;)
Hidden iframe.
Set target attribute of the form to the name of the iframe. use the onload event of the iframe to determine what is the response.
Or, if you really dont like any javascript, don't hide the iframe and instead present it in a creative manner.
CSS to hide an element
#myiframe { position:absolute; left: -999em; display: none; visibility: hidden; }
But normally, display: none is enough. This is just an overkill.
I am soo angry right now. I lost hours and i dont know why this happens. Its a semi rant but i'll try to keep it short
My code would not work, even after refreshing it was broken
I fixed my code or so i thought because it stops working without me changing anything (you would think i am imagining this...)
I somehow decide to make a new window or tab i run my code and verifies it works.
I write more code and see everything is broken again
I write test in a new window and see my code does work
I see my code doesnt work and firebug DOES NOT HELP
I notice when i create a new tab everything works
I realize refreshing does not work and i MUST make a new tab for my code to work.
Then i knew instantly what the problem was. I modify a display:none textbox but i set the values incorrectly. I cant see it because it is hidden. Now some of you might say its my fault because when doing a refresh all of the data may be cache. But here is the kicker. I was using POST data. I posted in between of the refresh each and everytime.
Whats the point of using POST when the same data is cached and use anyways? If theres no chance for a search engine to follow a block user get link then why should i bother making anything post when security or repeat actions are not an issue? POST didnt seem to do anything.
Sounds like you're being hit by form-field-value-remembering.
When you use back and forward (but when the bfcache isn't used in browsers that have it), or in some browsers when you hit reload, the browser attempts to keep the values of each form field that were present when the page was last unloaded. This is a feature intended to allow the user to navigate and refresh forms without losing all the data they're laboriously typed into them.
So you can't rely on the value of a form field being the same at page load time as it appears it should be from the HTML source. If you have DOM state that depends on the value of a form field (such as for example a form where some of the fields are hidden or disabled depending on the value of another field), you must update that state at page load time to reflect the field values that the browser has silently dropped into place (no onchange events occur). And don't use hidden inputs to store scripting variables at all.
The exact behaviour varies across browsers. For example some browsers keep the values of hidden fields and some don't. Mozilla and WebKit put the new values in instantly as the fields are parsed into the DOM, whilst IE only does it on window.onload... and Opera, aggravatingly, does it just after window.onload, so you can only catch it by setting a 0-timeout to update state after onload. It's a nasty mess.