Is there an app for this? Fill in a webform for me when I'm not around..
August 2, 2019 3:00 PM Subscribe
I'm wondering if there's an app that will help me fill out a webform at a specific time (when I'm not around)... or if not, how hard it would be to create?
Response by poster: I mean.. I want to be able to type in all the fields into a saved file .. and set a time for the webform to be filled out and submitted -- so the trigger is a time/day that I set.
posted by mhh5 at 3:19 PM on August 2, 2019
posted by mhh5 at 3:19 PM on August 2, 2019
It's doable with some javascript. You can even run it directly from dev tools. Is this a one time thing, or daily?
posted by pyro979 at 4:15 PM on August 2, 2019
posted by pyro979 at 4:15 PM on August 2, 2019
MeFi mail me. If it's quick I might have time to write something.
posted by pyro979 at 4:16 PM on August 2, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by pyro979 at 4:16 PM on August 2, 2019 [1 favorite]
It wouldn’t be that hard using macro software, which exists on all platforms. Go to this url, tab, tab, type, tab, type, click, done.
posted by adamrice at 9:29 PM on August 2, 2019
posted by adamrice at 9:29 PM on August 2, 2019
Best answer: If the form is simple and you have access to a unix-like system, and you can submit it once without making a problem, you can do this quite neatly via the dev tools in your browser.
What you want to do is (firefox or chrome):
1. Go to the page with the form on it
2. Fill in the form
3. Open the devtools (F12 probably, or something else on mac OS) and go to the network tab
4. Submit the form - I guess you could disconnect from the network at this point and then it wouldn't actually happen
5. In the network tab of the devtools there will be a request that happened because you submitted the form - likely to have POST in the method column
6. Right click on the request line and there should be 'copy as cURL' or 'copy all as cURL' - this will give you the command line invocation of the program 'curl' required to do the form submission
7. You can paste this into a terminal to execute it later - if you want to do this at a particular time you can probably use the 'at' command for it, or (simpler) if you want to wait 3 hours and then do it you can run something like 'sleep 3h; curl .....'
This will not work properly if the form is doing anything very complicated or if you have to do a complicated type of login to get to the form.
posted by larkery at 4:45 AM on August 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
What you want to do is (firefox or chrome):
1. Go to the page with the form on it
2. Fill in the form
3. Open the devtools (F12 probably, or something else on mac OS) and go to the network tab
4. Submit the form - I guess you could disconnect from the network at this point and then it wouldn't actually happen
5. In the network tab of the devtools there will be a request that happened because you submitted the form - likely to have POST in the method column
6. Right click on the request line and there should be 'copy as cURL' or 'copy all as cURL' - this will give you the command line invocation of the program 'curl' required to do the form submission
7. You can paste this into a terminal to execute it later - if you want to do this at a particular time you can probably use the 'at' command for it, or (simpler) if you want to wait 3 hours and then do it you can run something like 'sleep 3h; curl .....'
This will not work properly if the form is doing anything very complicated or if you have to do a complicated type of login to get to the form.
posted by larkery at 4:45 AM on August 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
I'd have to experiment some before I chose a way to do this, but as Adamrice suggests, any sequence that you can type on a keyboard can be programmed one way or another. But I'd like to point out that it's likely to be fragile, that is, easily caused to fail by any number of factors. One of the biggest risks would be if the web form was delayed slightly longer than expected. Another is even a slight change in the form format. So while there is an excellent chance this will work once or twice, it's not something to depend on for something important over a period of months or years.
Another question I have is how are you going to test it? Typically, you would have a test site to serve the form to you while programming and debugging. Without that, it would be tricky to get it to work first time, every time.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:00 AM on August 3, 2019
Another question I have is how are you going to test it? Typically, you would have a test site to serve the form to you while programming and debugging. Without that, it would be tricky to get it to work first time, every time.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:00 AM on August 3, 2019
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by shaademaan at 3:05 PM on August 2, 2019