Browser Automation for a single web page that is using JavaScript; project preferred made with Perl
Budget: €30 – €250 EUR
The goal is a CLI script that can automate the web page http://geometricolor.ch/images/geometricolor/quadrilateral.html
A batch process with some 10^3 iterations is planed where each time a combination of parameters are filled in text fields (6 or 7), some selections are made (max 3) and at the end the save-button for MapData is clicked to download a result txt-file.
I sketched the program logic in a (Matlab-)file in the Files section of this project [1]. My strategy is to make the batch process in Matlab and generate each iteration a system string with the settings for parameters etc. and then call the automation script with a system call. Such a system string would use 3-tuples (-IDtype token value) and could look like:
Perl perl_script_path -txtID DOM14 3 -txtID DOM19 2 -txtID DOM28 2 -txtID DOM37 2 -txtID circleSizetext 0.4 -txtID circlePositiontext 0.4 -buttonID saveMapData click -url http://geometricolor.ch/images/geometricolor/quadrilateral.html
I would strongly prefer that this project be made in Perl, so I could at least have a chance to understand what is done [2].
The problem is that the target page is heavily using JavaScript and the IDs for text fields etc. are not shown in the HTML body. I had to use the Firefox Inspector to retrieved the IDs. I do not know if automation modules like https://metacpan.org/dist/WWW-Mechanize-Chrome can handle this.
[1] editors like gedit have presets for Octave/Matlab that can read m-files with the right layout
[2] I last worked with Perl more than 5 years ago so there will be a learning curve for me and I will probably need help to master the dependency hell of modules
Installed is: "perl 5, version 24, subversion 1 (v5.24.1) built for MSWin32-x64-multi-thread"
A batch process with some 10^3 iterations is planed where each time a combination of parameters are filled in text fields (6 or 7), some selections are made (max 3) and at the end the save-button for MapData is clicked to download a result txt-file.
I sketched the program logic in a (Matlab-)file in the Files section of this project [1]. My strategy is to make the batch process in Matlab and generate each iteration a system string with the settings for parameters etc. and then call the automation script with a system call. Such a system string would use 3-tuples (-IDtype token value) and could look like:
Perl perl_script_path -txtID DOM14 3 -txtID DOM19 2 -txtID DOM28 2 -txtID DOM37 2 -txtID circleSizetext 0.4 -txtID circlePositiontext 0.4 -buttonID saveMapData click -url http://geometricolor.ch/images/geometricolor/quadrilateral.html
I would strongly prefer that this project be made in Perl, so I could at least have a chance to understand what is done [2].
The problem is that the target page is heavily using JavaScript and the IDs for text fields etc. are not shown in the HTML body. I had to use the Firefox Inspector to retrieved the IDs. I do not know if automation modules like https://metacpan.org/dist/WWW-Mechanize-Chrome can handle this.
[1] editors like gedit have presets for Octave/Matlab that can read m-files with the right layout
[2] I last worked with Perl more than 5 years ago so there will be a learning curve for me and I will probably need help to master the dependency hell of modules
Installed is: "perl 5, version 24, subversion 1 (v5.24.1) built for MSWin32-x64-multi-thread"