[Novalug] Need to automate a web browser session

[Jeff Stoner]

On Thu, 30 Sep 2010, Jim Ide wrote:

> I want to automate the process of visiting a
> particular web site, clicking certain links,
> downloading files, etc.  What tools have you
> used that do this?  I have used Selenium, but
> it seems to be intended more for web app testing
> than for automating web tasks.
>
> Requirements:
>
> * must run in Linux and MS Windows
> * must be free
> * must be fairly easy for non-techies to use and understand
>
> Thanks for your help.

Scriting using Perl and LWP but that falls outside the range of "fairly 
easy for non-techies."

I've found nifty uses for Badboy (http://www.badboy.com.au/). It's a 
Windows app but it can generate jmeter scripts, which runs on Linux or 
Windows (caveat, not all features of Badboy can be exported to jmeter.)

Jmeter. It has a slight learning curve to it but once you know it, you can 
do a lot with it.

You may be able to get away with writing a wrapper around some of these. 
Your users can provide an input file (similar to a Windows ini file) that 
your script parses and generates a file that feeds in to jmeter or badboy 
or something else. That way you can hide some of the complexity.


--Jeff

"You cannot unsay a cruel word." - Unknown