[Wtr-development] Fwd: Embedded IE automation using watir

[Charley Baker]

Interesting stuff. Park is a huge contributor on the ruby win32 projects,
and looking as the code to implement this makes me go blind. I think it's a
good idea to add this feature to the core codebase with two caveats. The
code to implement this is rather challenging with a huge amount of hex
values values for something being passed in and out to windows api calls; it
would be nice to either invite Park to help out if people do have problems,
at least get some understanding of what's going on and/or someone to take
over this particular area.

I have a fair amount of Windows client programming experience, and can hack
at this if need be, but I'd rather have someone who knows this better or at
the very least, work with Park on understanding and being able to maintain
this code. An addendum is that I have no need for this in my applications,
so it's better suited for someone who has a stronger motivation to fix
problems as they arise.

The second caveat is the same with a lot of contributions, there are no
tests submitted with the code. In order for this to be accepted into the
core, that's a requirement. We certainly could vette this in contrib as a
useful feature that's basically unsupported, but that invites additional
traffic with questions onto the mailing list. Acceptable possibly and likely
to be low traffic at that. However, contrib is somewhat of a backlog which
I'd rather not see grow too large.

 Anyhow those are thoughts off the top of my head. Does anyone have another
opinion to add?


Charley Baker
Lead Developer, Watir, http://wtr.rubyforge.org


On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 8:14 AM, Bret Pettichord <bpettichord at gmail.com>wrote:

> I just took a quick look at this, but I think this is something that we've
> had several requests for.
>
> Bret
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Basavana Gowda K S <basavanagowda.ksb at gmail.com>
> Date: Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 7:56 AM
> Subject: Embedded IE automation using watir
> To: bpettichord at gmail.com, zeljko.filipin at wa-research.ch,
> alister.scott at gmail.com
> Cc: basavana.gowda at corp.aol.com
>
>
> Hi Bret/Zeljko Filipin/Alister ,
>
> I work for AOL winamp player team, we had a requirement of testing pages
> displayed under browser embedded inside the player.This is priority
> requirement for us.
>
> We know that one of the limitation of watir tool is that, *it does not
> support attaching to IE window when it runs under a service* .So, based on
> the inputs/help from ruby forums (*Park Heesob provided the implementation
> of the methods based on my research, thanks a ton to him, saved my time*),
> i tried implementing/integrating attach method which can work with embedded
> browser,
>
> I thought of reviewing the code with you, so that it could be helpful for
> you to include it in the upcoming releases of watir.
>
> *Procedure:
> *Get Embedded IE handle -> get HTMLDocument2 ptr (Win32ole) -> get
> WebBrowser2 ( Win32ole) object -> Watir object
>
> Find the attached rb file having the implementation of the same.
>
> Sample code used with winamp:
>
>    *require 'watir'
>    require 'C:/embedded_ie'*
>
> *    # Invoke winamp
>     Winamp.invoke()*
>
> *    # Goto online services web page and get the browser instance
>     $library.selectTreeItem("Online Services")*
>
> *    @@browser = Watir::IE.attach_embedded("Main Window", :classnameNN,
> "Internet Explorer_Server1")*
>
> *    @@brower.link(:text, 'ONLINE SERVICES').click()*
>
> *   Attach method syntax:*
>
>    * Watir::IE.attach_embedded(parent, how, what)
> *    parent -> parent window control name  Ex: "Main Window" is winamp
> here
>     how -> :classnameNN or :hnd  embedded ie window control or handle
> property type , Ex: :ClassnameNN is used in the above example
>     what -> :classnameNN or :hnd  embedded ie window control or handle
> property value Ex: ie window control "Internet Explorer_Server1" , "Internet
> Explorer_Server2" etc ..
>
> * Advantage:
> *  We can manipulate pages displayed inside the embedded instance of IE.
>
> One more small request , teams here at AOL are widely using watir tool,
> Alister Scott could you please include us under watir users
>
> Revert back to me for any information on this.
>
> Thanks
> -B
>
>
>
> --
> Bret Pettichord
> Lead Developer, Watir, www.watir.com
>
> Blog, www.io.com/~wazmo/blog <http://www.io.com/%7Ewazmo/blog>
> Twitter, www.twitter.com/bpettichord
>
>
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>
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