OT: Scraping data from Windows app screen
I need to pick up the text (field prompts and data) from a data entry screen. Is there a utility which could do such? An array of text by rows would be preferable, but other formats would likely suffice. Thanks, Steve
On 2011-09-16, at 12:07 PM, Steve Graham wrote:
I need to pick up the text (field prompts and data) from a data entry screen. Is there a utility which could do such? An array of text by rows would be preferable, but other formats would likely suffice.
From an HTML form? A GUI window? ...? It will be very different from one API to the other. Marc
From a Windows GUI window.
Here's the situation. A group at work is already entering data into a Windows-based application. Now they are also supposed to be putting in much the same data into a 2nd terminal-based app. So, I'm thinking there must be a way to pick up the data already entered into the first app (i.e. through "scraping" from the 1st app's window) and automatically place it into the 2nd app. It could be a Gambit question if I can figure out how to do it - i.e. figure out the 1st app's handle and use the api to pick up Window Text, field text, etc. Or perhaps there's already an app in existence to do such. That's why I titled it starting with OT. Thanks, Steve ________________________________ From: Marc Feeley <feeley@iro.umontreal.ca> To: Steve Graham <jsgrahamus@yahoo.com> Cc: Gambit List <Gambit-list@iro.umontreal.ca> Sent: Friday, September 16, 2011 2:08 PM Subject: Re: [gambit-list] OT: Scraping data from Windows app screen On 2011-09-16, at 12:07 PM, Steve Graham wrote:
I need to pick up the text (field prompts and data) from a data entry screen. Is there a utility which could do such? An array of text by rows would be preferable, but other formats would likely suffice.
From an HTML form? A GUI window? ...? It will be very different from one API to the other. Marc
On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 01:56:06PM -0700, Steve Graham wrote:
From a Windows GUI window.
Here's the situation. A group at work is already entering data into a Windows-based application. Now they are also supposed to be putting in much the same data into a 2nd terminal-based app.
So the obvious question is -- does the Windows-based application stor those data somewhere? Is it possible to read the place it is stored? -- hendrik
Hadn't really thought of that. Great idea. Thanks, Steve. ________________________________ From: Hendrik Boom <hendrik@topoi.pooq.com> To: gambit-list@iro.umontreal.ca Sent: Friday, September 16, 2011 6:09 PM Subject: Re: [gambit-list] OT: Scraping data from Windows app screen On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 01:56:06PM -0700, Steve Graham wrote:
From a Windows GUI window.
Here's the situation. A group at work is already entering data into a Windows-based application. Now they are also supposed to be putting in much the same data into a 2nd terminal-based app.
So the obvious question is -- does the Windows-based application stor those data somewhere? Is it possible to read the place it is stored? -- hendrik _______________________________________________ Gambit-list mailing list Gambit-list@iro.umontreal.ca https://webmail.iro.umontreal.ca/mailman/listinfo/gambit-list
On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 9:43 PM, Steve Graham <jsgrahamus@yahoo.com> wrote:
Hadn't really thought of that. Great idea. Thanks, Steve.
Of course, if you find out that you really need to scrape the data (weird storage format, concurrency issues, etc), you'll have to talk to the API. At the very minimum, you'll have to send messages to the text fields (WM_GETTEXT). Something like this: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/352236/reading-from-a-text-field-in-anoth... I have no need to do anything on Windows these days, so I've never used the win32 API with Chicken. However, since it is something that's easy to do in C, it shouldn't be that difficult to come up with a solution on both Chicken and Gambit. -- Stephen *"Kids these days.* *Whatever happened to hard work?* -- Joel Spolsky, The perils of javaschools"
Thanks, Stephen. Steve ________________________________ From: Stephen Eilert <spedrosa@gmail.com> To: Steve Graham <jsgrahamus@yahoo.com> Cc: "gambit-list@iro.umontreal.ca" <gambit-list@iro.umontreal.ca> Sent: Friday, September 16, 2011 9:40 PM Subject: Re: [gambit-list] OT: Scraping data from Windows app screen On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 9:43 PM, Steve Graham <jsgrahamus@yahoo.com> wrote: Hadn't really thought of that. Great idea. Thanks, Steve. Of course, if you find out that you really need to scrape the data (weird storage format, concurrency issues, etc), you'll have to talk to the API. At the very minimum, you'll have to send messages to the text fields (WM_GETTEXT). Something like this: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/352236/reading-from-a-text-field-in-anoth... I have no need to do anything on Windows these days, so I've never used the win32 API with Chicken. However, since it is something that's easy to do in C, it shouldn't be that difficult to come up with a solution on both Chicken and Gambit. -- Stephen "Kids these days. Whatever happened to hard work? -- Joel Spolsky, The perils of javaschools"
Thanks to all who have offered suggestions. Steve ________________________________ From: Steve Graham <jsgrahamus@yahoo.com> To: Gambit List <Gambit-list@iro.umontreal.ca> Sent: Friday, September 16, 2011 10:07 AM Subject: [gambit-list] OT: Scraping data from Windows app screen I need to pick up the text (field prompts and data) from a data entry screen. Is there a utility which could do such? An array of text by rows would be preferable, but other formats would likely suffice. Thanks, Steve _______________________________________________ Gambit-list mailing list Gambit-list@iro.umontreal.ca https://webmail.iro.umontreal.ca/mailman/listinfo/gambit-list
participants (4)
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Hendrik Boom -
Marc Feeley -
Stephen Eilert -
Steve Graham