Mechanoid Web Browser - Recording Capability

[alex_f_il at hotmail.com]

You can try  SWExplorerAutomation (SWEA) (http:\\webunittesting.com).
It works very well with the password protected sites. SWEA is .Net API,
but you can use IronPython to access it.

Seymour wrote:
> I am trying to find a way to sign onto my Wall Street Journal account
> (http://online.wsj.com/public/us) and automatically download various
> financial pages on stocks and mutual funds that I am interested in
> tracking.  I have a subscription to this site and am trying to figure
> out how to use python, which I have been trying to learn for the past
> year, to automatically login and capture a few different pages.
> I have mastered capturing web pages on non-password sites, but am
> struggling otherwise and have been trying to learn how to program the
> Mechanoid module (http://cheeseshop.python.org/pypi/mechanoid) to get
> past the password protected site hurdle.
>
> My questions are:
> 1. Is there an easier way to grab these pages from a password protected
> site, or is the use of Mechanoid a reasonable approach?
> 2. Is there an easy way of recording a web surfing session in Firefox
> to see what the browser sends to the site?  I am thinking that this
> might help me better understand the Mechanoid commands, and more easily
> program it.  I do a fair amount of VBA Programming in Microsoft Excel
> and have always found the Macro Recording feature a very useful
> starting point which has greatly helped me get up to speed.
> 
> Thanks for your help/insights.
> Seymour