[RESOLVED] Facebook Search

[Tddupre]

So I am trying to use the search bar on the the face book page and I am stuck. I don't even know if Facebook allows it. This is what I am using right now. It places the text in the box, but it wont invoke the click

Try
            WebBrowser1.Document.GetElementById("q").SetAttribute("Value", txtEmail.Text) 'Fills the Search field on the website
            WebBrowser1.Document.GetElementById("Search").InvokeMember("click") 'Submits the information filled
        Catch ex As Exception

        End Try

[stateofidleness]

sometimes you need a "pause" so that it has time to show up in the textbox before the click is submitted. try adding a timer with an interval of 1000 and put the "click" line of code in the timer's tick event. leave the textbox line where it's at. see if it works then. this all assumes that the search button has an ID of "Search" btw. Usually the ID for form submit buttons will be "Submit".

EDIT: The HTML for that submit button is:

<button type="submit" onclick="var q = $(&quot;q&quot;);if (q.value == q.getAttribute(&quot;placeholder&quot;)) {q.focus(); return false;}" title="Search"><span class="hidden_elem">Search</span></button>

It does not have an ID, so you're trying to click something that isn't there. What you'll need to do is loop through the HTMLCollection's "input" tags and test to see if the "title" attribute is equal to "Search". Once it is, you know you have the right button and can perform the click.

something like:

Dim webBrowserDocument As HtmlDocument = webBrowser.Document
Dim hec As HtmlElementCollection = webBrowserDocument.GetElementsByTagName("input")
For Each element As HtmlElement In hec
  If String.Compare(element.GetAttribute("title"), "Search") = 0 Then 'Found it
       'Click it here
  End if
Next

Untested, but should be close.

[Tddupre]

I got it working by using their url structure

 Private Sub btnSearch_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnSearch.Click
               Dim email As String
        email = txtEmail.Text.Replace("@", "%40")
        WebBrowser1.Navigate("http://www.facebook.com/search/?o=2048&q=" & email)
    End Sub

[stateofidleness]

that works too!

[Francis001]

Aside from the advanced search option that Facebook has, there is another search option that you can use if you want to look for networks. Type “facebook.network/network.php” in the browser bar or URL and then you can search for that network you’re looking for.