Automating existing browser session

[6DiegoDiego9]

I am doing my first experiments using SeleniumVBA and the new SetDebuggerAddress (thanks Mike!) to automate tasks on tabs that are already open in my main (manual) browser instance.

However, I encountered a couple of obstacles:

• the first is that the VBA native Application.OnKey method to create hotkeys only works while Excel has focus
• the second is that, in order to find an existing specific tab to attach to, I found no easy way to get the list of the open tabs without switching to them one-by-one, wasting time and resources wakening them all up

To solve the second one, the most fast and neutral way I discovered is to read and parse the page http://localhost:9222/json, which I found to contain the window handle, title and url of every open tab (and more...).

Here is my testing code:

Sub MultiSearch()
'HotKey: ctrl+alt+s
    Static driver As WebDriver
    If driver Is Nothing Then
        Set driver = New WebDriver
        driver.StartEdge
        Dim caps As WebCapabilities
        Set caps = driver.CreateCapabilities(initializeFromSettingsFile:=False)
        caps.SetDebuggerAddress "localhost:9222"
        driver.OpenBrowser caps
    End If
    With driver
        .NavigateTo "http://localhost:9222/json"
        Dim json$
        json = .GetInnerHTML
        .CloseWindow
        '#### find the wanted window handle parsing the json string ####
        Stop
        .SwitchToWindow "CDwindow-" '& windowHandle (eg. "0DA2CAB3EAA71440AE257DBA37A5B802")
        Stop
    End With
End Sub

Do you have any suggestion?

[GCuser99]

@6DiegoDiego9,

On your Application.OnKey Excel focus issue - I know of no clean solution. It looks like you can create a windows hotkey to a VBScript file shortcut that resides on either your desktop or windows program startup directory but that idea is probably too messy to pursue.

On the SwitchToWindow issue - wow, that's pretty cool - thanks for sharing! I see that there are even more http endpoints that can be invoked in debugger mode. You should consider adding a use-case example in the test modules, if you come up with a good one.

FYI don't forget that there is the PageToJsonObject method that could be useful for parsing the resulting json:

Dim json As Collection
Set json = .PageToJSONObject
For i = 1 To json.Count
     If json(i)("title") = "Pippo.com: who am I" Then 
         windowHandle = json(i)("id")
         Exit For
     End If
Next i

[GCuser99]

@6DiegoDiego9,

Any new insights concerning attaching to an existing browser session? I wonder what other cdp commands can be sent to the browser?

I reran (since your original post) a version of your script above with Chrome browser and the SwitchToWindow failed - it now works if I leave off the "CdWindow-" prefix for the window handle. Have you determined the same?

Also, I tried attaching to Edge browser and it fails with a timeout on OpenBrowser. Do you know what I am doing wrong?

Sub test_remoteDebugger()
    'THIS WORKS FOR GCUSER99 USING CHROME, BUT NOT EDGE
    Dim driver As SeleniumVBA.WebDriver
    Dim keys As SeleniumVBA.WebKeyboard
    Dim caps As SeleniumVBA.WebCapabilities
    Dim wshell As Object
    Dim keySeq As String
    
    Set keys = SeleniumVBA.New_WebKeyboard
    Set driver = SeleniumVBA.New_WebDriver
    
    'must start the browser on the debugging port
    Set wshell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
    'wshell.Run "chrome.exe --remote-debugging-port=9222"
    wshell.Run "msedge.exe --remote-debugging-port=9222"

    'driver.StartChrome
    driver.StartEdge
    
    Set caps = driver.CreateCapabilities(initializeFromSettingsFile:=False)
    
    'set debugger address to same port as browser
    caps.SetDebuggerAddress "localhost:9222"
    'Debug.Print caps.ToJson
    
    driver.OpenBrowser caps  '<-- FAILS HERE
    
    driver.NavigateTo "https://www.wikipedia.org/"
    driver.Wait 1000
    
    keySeq = "Leonardo da VinJci" & keys.LeftKey & keys.LeftKey & keys.LeftKey & keys.DeleteKey & keys.ReturnKey
    
    driver.FindElement(By.ID, "searchInput").SendKeys keySeq

    driver.Wait 1500
    
    driver.CloseBrowser
    driver.Shutdown
End Sub

Thanks in advance!

[6DiegoDiego9]

I just tried again my original version on my Edge 114.0.1823.41 (Official build) (64-bit), and I just had to remove "CDwindow-" to make it work.

Note 1: I opened Edge via a shortcut icon with the argument "--remote-debugging-port=9222"

Note 2: if Edge is already open without that argument, it's necessary to kill its process(es) before launching it with that argument. Simply closing the visible Edge window is not sufficient. Manually verifying that "localhost:9222/json" works proved to be a reliable predictor of it working with SeleniumVBA.

Note 3: some tests showed me that only the IDs of type "page" work with SwitchToWindow. The other types, namely "iframe, "background_page" and "service_worker," don't work, presumably because they are not even tabs.

[GCuser99]

ahhh - thx that helps! Based on your answer above, the following works for me consistently...

Sub test_remoteDebugger()
    Dim driver As SeleniumVBA.WebDriver
    Dim keys As SeleniumVBA.WebKeyboard
    Dim caps As SeleniumVBA.WebCapabilities
    Dim wshell As Object
    Dim keySeq As String
    
    Set keys = SeleniumVBA.New_WebKeyboard
    Set driver = SeleniumVBA.New_WebDriver
    
    'must start the browser on the debugging port
    Set wshell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
    'kill edge processes
    wshell.Run "taskkill /f /t /im msedge.exe", 0, True
    'open browser
    wshell.Run "msedge.exe http://localhost:9222/json --remote-debugging-port=9222"

    driver.StartEdge
    
    Set caps = driver.CreateCapabilities(initializeFromSettingsFile:=False)
    
    'set debugger address to same port as browser
    caps.SetDebuggerAddress "localhost:9222"
    'Debug.Print caps.ToJson
    
    driver.OpenBrowser caps
    
    driver.NavigateTo "https://www.wikipedia.org/"
    driver.Wait 1000
    
    keySeq = "Leonardo da VinJci" & keys.LeftKey & keys.LeftKey & keys.LeftKey & keys.DeleteKey & keys.ReturnKey
    
    driver.FindElement(By.ID, "searchInput").SendKeys keySeq

    driver.Wait 1500
    
    driver.CloseBrowser
    driver.Shutdown
End Sub