NAME

WWW::Mechanize::Firefox::Cookbook - Recipes for using WWW::Mechanize::Firefox

Introduction

Note that WWW::Mechanize::Firefox is quite similar in its API to WWW::Mechanize, so many of the recipes in WWW::Mechanize::Cookbook apply to it as well.

Basics

Launch WWW::Mechanize::Firefox

use WWW::Mechanize::Firefox;
my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new();
$mech->get('http://google.com');

Launch WWW::Mechanize::Firefox if Firefox is not running

use WWW::Mechanize::Firefox;
my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new(
    launch => '/path/to/firefox',
);
$mech->get('http://google.com');

Use an existing tab

use WWW::Mechanize::Firefox;
my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new(
    tab => qr/^Google/,
);
$mech->get('http://google.com');

Use the current tab

use WWW::Mechanize::Firefox;
my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new(
    tab => 'current',
);
$mech->get('http://google.com');

Bring the tab to the foreground at start

use WWW::Mechanize::Firefox;
my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new(
    activate => 1,
);
$mech->get('http://google.com');

Bring the tab to the foreground later

my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new(
);
...
$mech->activateTab();

Fetch a page to a file

use WWW::Mechanize::Firefox;
my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new(
    tab => 'current',
);
$mech->get('http://google.com',
    ':content_file' => 'google_com.html' );

Fetch a page to a file with all images

use WWW::Mechanize::Firefox;
my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new(
    tab => 'current',
);
$mech->get('http://google.com');
$mech->save_content('google_com.html', 'google_com files');

Advanced HTML interaction

Wait until an element appears

Some sites generate content after the DOMContentLoaded event has fired. To wait until an element becomes available, use the following code:

# The submit button is generated after the page has loaded

my $retries = 10;
while ($retries-- and ! $mech->is_visible( xpath => '//*[@id="submit"]' )) {
      sleep 1;
};
die "Timeout" unless $retries;

# Now the element exists
$mech->click({xpath => '//*[@id="submit"]'});

Wait until an element disappears

Some sites display an hourglass or some other indicator to tell you to wait. To wait until such an element becomes invisible, use the following code:

my $retries = 10;
while ($retries-- and $mech->is_visible( xpath => '//*[@id="hourglass"]' )) {
      sleep 1;
};
die "Timeout while waiting for application" unless $retries;

# Now the hourglass is not visible anymore

UI interaction

Keep the tab open after your program quits

In the case that you want to navigate the user to a specific place and then take over manually, you can prevent the automatic closing of the browser tab. Either create your $mech object like this:

my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new(
    autoclose => 0,
);

or decide at runtime whether to close the tab:

$mech->autoclose_tab(0);

This does currently not work.

Get notified when the current tab changes

my $browser = $mech->repl->expr('window.getBrowser()');

my $eventlistener = progress_listener(
    $browser,
    onLocationChange => \&onLocationChange,
);

while (1) {
    $mech->repl->poll();
    sleep 1;
};

Images

Save the current page as PNG

This will take a "screenshot" which also includes plugins like Flash.

my $png = $mech->content_as_png();
open my $fh, '>', 'page.png'
    or die "Couldn't save to 'page.png': $!";
binmode $fh;
print {$fh} $png;
close $fh;

Also see the file screenshot.pl included and installed through the distribution.

Save top left corner of the current page as PNG

my $rect = {
  left  =>    0,
  top   =>    0,
  width  => 200,
  height => 200,
};
my $png = $mech->content_as_png(undef, $rect);
open my $fh, '>', 'page.png'
    or die "Couldn't save to 'page.png': $!";
binmode $fh;
print {$fh} $png;
close $fh;

Javascript

Check that your Page has no Javascript compile errors

$mech->get('mypage');
my @errors = map {$_->{message}} $mech->js_errors();
if (@errors) {
    die "Found errors on page: @errors";
};

Override the Javascript alert() function

$mech->eval_in_page('alert("Hello");',
    { alert => sub { print "Captured alert: '@_'\n" } }
);

Set a value without triggering Javascript events

Just pass empty lists for the lists of events to invoke

$mech->field( 'myfield', 'myvalue', [], [] );

Not working yet

Upload a file to an ftp server

Not implemented - this requires instantiating and passing a nsIURI object instead of a nsILocalFile .

You can use ->save_url to transfer files. $localname can be a local filename, a file:// URL or any other URL that allows uploads, like ftp://.

$mech->save_url('file://path/to/my/file.txt'
    => 'ftp://myserver.example/my/file.txt');

AUTHOR

Max Maischein corion@cpan.org

Contributed examples contain the original author's name.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2010-2011, Max Maischein.

All Rights Reserved. This module is free software. It may be used, redistributed and/or modified under the same terms as Perl itself.

cpanm WWW::Mechanize::Firefox

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install WWW::Mechanize::Firefox