Solved [2005] HTML Doc event triggering and AJAX in a client-side app

I need to build a client side application that will load a webpage and automate several tasks, i.e. programmatically trigger the onclick event below and so on.

I've come up with the following code that works well up until I get to the last batch of elements I need to simulate a click on.

Here's the code.

Code:

---

ListBox1.Items.Clear()
        Try
            'get number of elements in the document
            Tot = WebBrowserMain.Document.All.Count
            TextBox1.Clear()
            'generate list of clickable elements only
            For I = 0 To Tot - 1
                CurrentLink = WebBrowserMain.Document.All(I).getattribute("ID").ToString
                If InStr(CurrentLink, "fgh") > 0 Then
                    ListBox1.Items.Add(CurrentLink.ToString)
                    temp = I
                    'ok so we got an element "I", that contains the right IDs
                    'now trigger the internal event
                    hElement = WebBrowserMain.Document.All(I)
                    hElement.ScrollIntoView(True)
                    hElement.InvokeMember("onclick")
                    Log("Clicked link")
                End If
            Next
            Log("END")
        Catch ex As Exception
            MsgBox(ex.ToString)
        End Try

---

And here's the html that's relevant, it contains AJAX.

Code:

---

<div id="app2437228683_diggComment3435209" fbcontext="7c279ec28a71">
        <center>

<a style="cursor: pointer;" onclick="fbjs_sandbox.instances.a2437228683.bootstrap();return fbjs_dom.eventHandler.call([js_dom.get_instance(this,2437228683),function(a2437228683_event) {a2437228683_doajax('Comment3435209', 'http://74.86.142.204/~tearswep/humanpets/diggComments.php?cid=3435209&amp;up=1&amp;diggs=2&amp;poster=556985114&amp;herd=1', '')},2437228683],new js_event(event));return true">
<img src="http://x.x.x.x/up.jpg" width="30" height="30" /></a><br />

---

When run the code works fine for buttons, checkboxes etc, but stalls on this onclick event, and I don't know why. I imagine it's because that although contained within the ID of the element I've captured, the event itself isn't named, or perhaps there's something else preventing it. I'm not a developer, and I only use VB on occasion, so any help is greatly appreciated!

Welcome to the Forums

You can get some guidensce and tips from this thread - http://vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=416275

Hi, and thanks for the quick response and welcome!

I encountered this thread earlier and whilst it's a great start for some things I might need in future, doesn't address my particular issue.

Since it doesnt have a name or id then you may have better luck looping through the HTMLLinkElements and clicking them.

Dim link As MSHTML.HTMLLinkElement
'set link to the desired element and then ...
link.Click

Thanks again, I'm not sure how to implement that idea in the above code, I was using the newer web controls up until an hour ago and need to familiarise myself with the older COM stuff.

Any help with this is appreciated!

Something like this will enumerate all the links but you will need some way to know if you should click it or not.

Code:

---

Dim doc As MSHTML.HTMLDocument
Dim link As MSHTML.HTMLLinkElement
Dim i As Integer
WebBrowser1.Navigate2 "http://vbforums.com"
'Wait for doc to load. Maybe put in other event.
Set doc = WebBrowser1.Document
For Each link In doc.links
    If link.Title = "Something" Then
        link.Click
    End If
Next

---

From what I can see this is exactly what I've already done.

My code iterates through all elements in the document looking for the right ID, then invokemember("onclick")s the right link.

I've followed the syntax using 2005 controls and I end up having to use either raiseevent("onclick"), or invokemember("onclick"), to simulate the click, with zero effect.

This may shed some light: I've discovered that when using getattribute("onclick"), there is no text returned, so possibly there is no effect because although the HTML indicates that onclick is there, the code isn't finding it...

Alright, I fixed the issue by scanning through the document for the "src" attribute containing the image name I needed to click, then using the raiseevent("click") command on it.

Phew. Thanks all!