I must be close

[bbierie]

I have to be close on this. Basically it should track links posted on my webpage, go to the link, return to my webpage and check for next.

Right now the first part:

 Dim theElementCollection As HtmlElementCollection
        theElementCollection = WebBrowser1.Document.GetElementsByTagName("a")

        Dim userName As String = textbox1.Text.Trim()
        Dim allLinks As HtmlElementCollection = WebBrowser1.Document.Links

        For Each link As HtmlElement In theElementCollection

            Dim linkfound As String = link.GetAttribute("href")
           
            If linkfound.Contains(userName) Then
                WebBrowser1.Navigate(linkfound)

                RichTextBox1.Text = RichTextBox1.Text & vbCrLf & linkfound & vbCrLf
                Timer1.Start()
                Exit For
            End If

        Next

Works perfect. Saves a copy of link in richtextbox, browses to the page and returns. (return code elsewhere)

My problem is the button starts a timer which should preform this task but now it should check links and compare them to existing ones in richtextbox. If the exact link is there do nothing and go to next foundlink. The timer code where the problem is:

Dim theElementCollection As HtmlElementCollection
            theElementCollection = WebBrowser1.Document.GetElementsByTagName("a")

            Dim userName As String = textbox1.Text.Trim()
            Dim allLinks As HtmlElementCollection = WebBrowser1.Document.Links

            For Each link As HtmlElement In theElementCollection

                Dim linkfound As String = link.GetAttribute("href")
                If linkfound.Contains(userName) Then
                  
                    For Each linkUrl In RichTextBox1.Text
                        If linkUrl = linkfound Then
                            Exit For
                        Else
                            addressbar.Text = linkfound
                            WebBrowser1.Navigate(linkfound)
                            RichTextBox1.Text = RichTextBox1.Text & vbCrLf & linkfound & vbCrLf
                        End If

                    Next

                Else
                    Exit For

                End If
            Next
        End If

[Shaggy Hiker]

So what's the problem? Starting at a chunk of code and guessing at what is going to go wrong, where, and why, is difficult enough to do with code you have written yourself, doing that with somebody elses code is much more difficult.

[bbierie]

sorry should have been a bit clearer.

The bottom code should be looking at the richtextbox which is storing the urls visited. I am trying to figure out the best way of taking a parsed url and compare it to the links in a richtextbox to see the url is already in the richtextbox. This way I wont keep going back to the same url

The break seems to be the actual comparing of the parsed url and the richtextbox links. I am wondering if there is a better way to compare.

[stanav]

Keep the visited url's in a list(Of string). Before you navigate to an url, check against the list. If the list doesn't contains the url then you add it to the list and navigate to that url. Otherwise, do nothing.