The renewal maintenance has officially ended for Progress iMacros effective November 30, 2023.
This Wiki site will also no longer be moderated from the Progress side.
Thank you again for your business and support.
Sincerely, The Progress Team
FAQ
We separated the Frequently Asked Questions we got over the years into Getting started, Installation, Creating macros, Data extraction and Web testing related questions. Some topics in this section are duplicated topics that proved to be hard to find in the online help and the user manual, while others are solutions for a specific task.
Getting started
Q: The web page I am accessing requires Internet Explorer (IE). Is this a problem?
iMacros is available as Internet Explorer add-in, so you can run all macros directly inside the real Microsoft Internet Explorer browser.
But you can also use the iMacros Browser because the iMacros browser is 100% Internet Explorer compatible. It comes with all Internet Explorer functions, including Cookies, ActiveX Controls, Java Script and Macromedia Flash.
If you use iMacros for web testing this means that you can run all IE related tests in the iMacros Browser, too. Technically speaking, the iMacros Browser is a "giant wrapper" around the the Microsoft Internet Explorer low-level components, so iMacros uses exactly the same code to render a web page as Internet Explorer does.
Typically we recommend the use of the iMacros Browser, because of the extra functions that are not available in the IE add-on, such as the Extraction Wizard or the TAB command.
Q: Are there conditional statements like if... then...else in the iMacros macro language?
The iMacros language is designed as a descriptive language (similar to HTML) and does not contain conditional statements. We did not add such statements as we do not think that our customers should have to attend week-long seminars just to learn yet another proprietary scripting or programming language.
Instead, we added a command line interface for use with batch files and task scheduler. We also added the powerful Scripting Interface that allows you to use iMacros with every Windows Scripting or programming language on the planet. Examples are VBS, VB, VBA, VB.NET, Perl, Java, Foxpro, C, C++, C# and many more. These languages are used by millions of computer users, are reliable and very well documented.
Examples for VBS can be found under here and on the iOpus homepage [1].
Installation
Q: I create macros for my clients. Do you have a free player?
Yes, you can purchase an Unlimited Users Player License key in our Online Store. This license allows you to ship macros and programs based on iMacros along with a copy of iMacros itself to your users without royalty payment. Technically speaking, this means that if iMacros is unlocked with the iMacros Player license key, your users have all the features of the Scripting Edition available except the ability to record new macros. For more details please see here.
Q: How can I automatically install iMacros?
General information can be found under Distributing iMacros. But basically there are two options:
(1) If you want to distribute the files with your own setup file, please visit our website [2] for an installation script source code. You can then modify this installer for your own needs or simply use it to learn how the software is installed.
(2) You can run the original setup file using command line switches to control the behaviour of the installer.
Q: What if the iMacros icon does not appear in the IE toolbar?
If you have previously customized your Internet Explorer toolbar the new iMacros icon does not appear by default. You need to add it to the Internet Explorer toolbar manually:
1. To add the icon, open your Internet Explorer and in the menu select View > Toolbars> Customize
2. Select the iMacros icon from the list of "Available Toolbar Buttons" and add it.
3. Done! The icon appears in the toolbar.
Note: This behavior is a feature of Internet Explorer - and not "bug" with the iMacros software. Microsoft's philosophy behind this seems to be that users who customized their browser toolbar once do not want new icons added automatically.
Creating Macros
How to
Q: A link changes every time I visit the web page ("session ID"), how can I replay the macro without error?
Some websites create links with a "session id" that is different each time you log in. What you need to do is to edit the macro manually after you recorded it and replace the id (or any other changing part of the string) with the wildcard *.
This method is described in detail in Fine Tune TAG Commands or Extract Tech Tip.
Q: How can I print a selected frame?
If the page uses frames and you want to print only a specific frame, select this frame with WINCLICK first before you use PRINT. An example macro can be found in the PRINT chapter of this manual.
Q: Some websites require me to enter a graphical "security code" or Turing number. I want the login macro to stop at this point and enter the characters manually. How do I set the focus to a input field for manual entry?
To set the focus to a certain input field (or any other element on the screen), please use the WINCLICK command.
Alternately, you could use the PROMPT command to pause the script and request the desired information from your user. It would look something like this:
Macro Code
VERSION BUILD=5100314 TAB T=1 TAB CLOSEALLOTHERS URL GOTO=https://s226.lanxtra.com/servlet/SLogin?template=/0/en/sloginsc.vm&login=true SIZE X=801 Y=602 TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=NAME:form1 ATTR=NAME:memberNumber CONTENT=TEST PROMPT Please<SP>enter<SP>the<SP>value<SP>of<SP>the<SP>Random<SP>Code !VAR1 TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=NAME:form1 ATTR=NAME:imageword CONTENT={{!VAR1}} TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:SUBMIT FORM=NAME:form1 ATTR=NAME:&&VALUE:Next<SP>-->
This will pop up a box with the selected text and will not continue until the user clicks ok.
Q: Is it possible to create macros that will run on the page displayed in the web browser, rather than using the URL GOTO command to direct it to a web page at the beginning of a macro. The pages I want to run macros on are all set out identically so one macro should work on all the pages.
The URL command is inserted by default every time you start recording a macro. After recording a macro, edit the macro source and manually remove the URL GOTO command. If you want to run the same macro on different pages, yet not all pages are exactly the same, use SET !ERRORIGNORE YES to simply skip TAG commands that cannot be executed.
Q: How can I read and write from a database?
Database integration is very easy with iMacros thanks to its powerful Scripting Interface. iMacros can connect to any Windows database, for example Access or SQL Server, but also MySQL. The Scripting Interface can be used from any Windows programming or scripting language like Excel VBA, Foxpro, Perl, C, C++, Java with no problems.
Please see the following example scripts: "extract-2-file.vbs" (uses wsh-extract-and-fill-part1 and wsh-extract-and-fill-part1 macros) "extract-2-database.vbs" (store information from a website in a database) "file-2-web.vbs", "database-2-web.vbs" (reads a text file or database and submits the content to a website)
Q: How do I make the macro continue (and not stop), if somewhere in the macro I get a timeout or error?
Please add the command SET !ERRORIGNORE YES to your macro.
Q: How can I do calculations in a macro?
For very simple calculations, iMacros offers the ADD command.
But instead of doing calculations in the macro, you can perform the calculations inside a script (e.g. Visual Basic Scripting, VBS). This allows you to use all kinds of more sophisticated calculations, loops (e.g. for....next loops) or conditional logic (e.g. if/then) for automating your web tasks. You can then use iimSet of the Scripting Interface to send values to a macro and the EXTRACT command to return values from a macro to the script.
The file random-numbers.vbs demonstrates how to use a script to generate random numbers and modify the macro based on the outcome. Or see the file extract-and-fill.vbs on how to extract a value, subtract a number from it, and re-submit the new value to the website.
Note that VBS files are not started from within the iMacros Browser. You can locate the file (e.g. via Explorer) and then simply double-click on the VBS file. Windows will then start to process the VBS file. The iMacros Browser is started by the VBS file via the iimInit command automatically.
More information about VBS files can be found in our online Windows Scripting Host tutorial or in this manual.
Q: How do I link several macros together or run one after the other?
There are several method to combine different macros.
Copy & Paste iMacros are simple text files, so you can easily combine (merge) several macros by editing the text files. The .iim macro files can be viewed and edited with an editor (e.g. Notepad), see here.
Batch files If all you need is to run several macros, one after the other, you can call them using the command line interface in a batch file. The -noexit command line switch may prove helpful in this context. Example batch files can be found in the Examples/Batch Files folder of your iMacros installation.
Scripting Interface You can use the iimPlay command to run one macro after the other. The following macro continues exactly at the same position where the other macro stopped as the browser window remains open between each macro. Remember to remove the URL GOTO... command from the following macros, if you want it to continue exactly where the other macro left off. To close a browser window, you can use iimExit. The documented example script combine-macros.vbs can be found in the Examples/Windows Scripting Host folder of your iMacros installation.
Q: If someone needs to make that decision meaning that the task would be partially automated, is there a way to make iMacros stop until a users enters a value and continue afterwards?
You can add the PROMPT command to the macro to make iMacros ask for a variable (e.g. the file name) or simply wait for a click on OK.
Q: How can I create a macro that can select one from a series of radio buttons? I want to avoid setting up separate macros for each selection.
You can use variables to select a radio button. For example, instead of using one of these three lines:
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:RADIO FORM=ACTION:/cgi-bin/Info.cgi ATTR=NAME:lunch CONTENT=yes TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:RADIO FORM=ACTION:/cgi-bin/Info.cgi ATTR=NAME:lunch CONTENT=no TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:RADIO FORM=ACTION:/cgi-bin/Info.cgi ATTR=NAME:lunch CONTENT=maybe
You can use:
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:RADIO FORM=ACTION:/cgi-bin/Info.cgi ATTR=NAME:lunch CONTENT={{choice}}
and set {{choice}} to either "yes", "no" or "maybe". Please note that this value might be case sensitive. This depends on the website that processes this input.
To assign a value to the variable you can use either the SET command, the -var_varname varvalue command line argument, or the iimSet command of the Scripting Interface.
Q: How to display the content of a variable?
For testing and debugging macros it can be useful to display the content of some variables. You can divert the PROMPT command from its intended use for this purpose. If you want to display the value of the two variables, !COL2 and MY_VARIABLE, use the following command
PROMPT {{!COL2}} {{!VAR1}} {{MY_VARIABLE}}
This will open an input dialog for !VAR1. This is the main purpose of a PROMPT command, but for our current use of the command this can be ignored. The input dialog box displays the value of {{!COL2}} as dialog box text and the value of {{MY_VARIABLE}} as input box default value. This allows you to check if these variables are populated correctly.
Issues during Replay
Q: Does iMacros work with every web site?
The macros recorded with iMacros work on almost all sites. Even if the standard click methods fail (for example on Flash of Java applets) the WINCLICK command can be used in almost all cases. If you think you have found a web site where iMacros does not work please let us know. We are very interested to hear of such cases and will assist you in finding a solution.
Q: We have a macro that goes to a web site and issues a query. The result is a variable list of links that all need to be clicked and the result saved for each link. Can this be accomplished using the tool?
Basically what you need is a macro that first navigates to your website, runs the query and then loops over the result. The solution is to split the task in two macros. The first macro (macro1) navigates to the site and runs the query. The second macro (macro2) "loops" over the result until all items are processed. Both macros are combined with a small script. Note that you have to manually remove the URL GOTO... in macro2. Thus the iMacros Browser continues macro2 exactly at the position where macro1 stopped. As an example, please see the "combine-macros.vbs" example script.
Q: Does the macro script wait for the page to fully finish loading?
Yes, if a command inside a macro triggers a page (re-)load iMacros automatically waits until the page is completely loaded before it continues with the next command.
On a few very complex web pages with frames the macro may continue before everything is loaded completely. In this case you can tell iMacros manually to wait for another "Page loaded..." signal by adding the WAIT SECONDS=#DOWNLOADCOMPLETE# command to the macro.
Note: If you use the Image Recognition Plugin you can also search for an image using the IMAGESEARCH command. iMacros will wait until this image appears (or the timeout value is reached). This approach looks at the website as if it were an image - just as a human would do! Thus this approach works with every web site, regardless of which web technology is used (HTML, Frames, ASP.NET, Java applet, Flash applet,....).
Q: Why is a certain input box never recorded?
1. If all input boxes except one or two are recorded correctly, the problem could be that these boxes have the same internal name. Typically, this occurs with input boxes that are used for "From" and "To" or "Password" and "Re-enter password" type of inputs. If (and only if) both fields have the same internal name iMacros can not fill the fields correctly during replay. Solution: Manually edit the macro and use POS=2 to reach the second element - the "To" selection in the following example.
URL GOTO=http://www.flybmi.com/bmi/en-gb/index.aspx SIZE X=800 Y=600 'Fill FROM field TAG POS=1 TYPE=SELECT FORM=NAME:IBEMagnet_IBEMagnet__ctl0 ATTR=NAME: CONTENT=$*Dublin* 'Fill TO field TAG POS=2 TYPE=SELECT FORM=NAME:IBEMagnet_IBEMagnet__ctl0 ATTR=NAME: CONTENT=$*Frankfurt* TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:IMAGE FORM=NAME:IBEMagnet_IBEMagnet__ctl0 ATTR=NAME:&&VALUE:
2. If you click on input boxes and no TAG commands at all are created, you might have encountered a Flash- or Java-based input box (inside a Flash- or Java-Applet) instead of a standard HTML input box. In this case, change the ClickMode to WinClick to record the input.
Q: Why is the dialog "XYZ" not handled by iMacros? [XYZ can be any browser dialog, for example the print, download or save dialog]
This issue can have several causes. Here are some questions in order to diagnose this problem:
Dialog is not recognized during Recording
· During recording, an iMacros dialog should appear under the Web Browser dialog. If the iMacros dialog does not appear, please make sure that the option "Use IM Dialog Manager" is checked in the Browser tab of the Options dialog.
· If this option is checked and the dialog is still not recognized, please play the "Demo-Javascript", Demo-Download" or "Demo-SaveAs" macro. Are the dialogs in these macros handled correctly? If not, try reinstalling the software or contact tech support.
· Does the dialog appear before you start recording? This could happen, for example, with a login dialog. To work around this, start recording at a different page, and enter your real web site address. You can always edit the macro after recording and remove the first URL.
· If the dialog is still not recognized: Is the dialog in our list of supported dialogs? If yes, try adding the commands manually to the macro and test if everything works correctly during replay.
2. Dialog is recorded, but not managed during Replay
· If the dialog appears at the end of the macro, it can be that the macro stops shortly before the dialog appears and thus cannot "catch" it. To work around this, add a WAIT SECONDS=3 command after the command that triggers the dialog to make sure iMacros is still active when the dialog appears.
Q: How do I make the IM Browser appear as native IE (Internet Explorer)?
Open the iMacros IE Plug-in or the iMacros Browser and open the Options dialog. In the Options dialog, select the Browser tab and choose "Stealth mode (Identify as native Internet Explorer)".
Q: How to select a specific button or link when they have the same name?
Problem: Wherever there are several items with the same caption in the web page (for example "save" button), I cannot tell the iMacros to select specific one. Always the first one is selected and recorded, even if I click on different one it selects the first one when replaying the macro
Solution: There are several possible solutions to this problem:
- Manually edit the macro and change the POS=1 attribute of the TAG command to POS=2. The exact number depends on the position of the element you want to select-
- Use the URL Click Mode for recording
- Use the X/Y CLICK Click Mode for recording
Extracting Data
Q: I use the EXTRACT command and get the message "Extraction anchor not found". What is the solution?
The reason for this message is that the extraction anchor, given mainly by the ATTR parameter of the EXTRACT command, could not be found on the currently active web site.
Here are some tips on creating good extraction anchors:
Make sure that you selected the appropriate part for the anchor. It should only contain HTML code that does not change during each session or the changing parts need to be replaced by the wildcard *.
Incorrect: This anchor does not work because it contains a changing value (the dollar amount).
EXTRACT POS=12 TYPE=TXT ATTR=Price US$ 3.50*
Correct: Replaced changing part with asterisk *
EXTRACT POS=12 TYPE=TXT ATTR=**
To test your anchor please make sure you click on "test_EXTRACT_tag" after iMacros suggests an anchor element or you have manually created one. Most extraction issues are detected with the test feature.
Experiment with the POS attribute. POS indicates which of a number instances of the same anchor on a web page should be extracted.
If the information you want to extract is inside a framed web site you need to click inside the frame that contains the information you want to extract before opening the Extraction Wizard. This generates the FRAME command and marks the frame as active for the extraction.
Q: I require macros that can extract simple text data from a web page and then insert the extracted information back into either the same web page or another web page. I do not need to store this data in any way. In effect all I need to do is copy and paste the text data.
Extracted data is saved in the !EXTRACT variable. You can assign the extracted value to a variable and use it again at a later point in your macro.
EXTRACT POS=29 TYPE=TXT ATTR=*
SET !VAR1 {{!EXTRACT}} ... TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=NAME:f1 ATTR=NAME:n1 CONTENT={{!VAR1}}
Q: How do I extract information from a table with variable length and/or more than one page?
This task occurs often e.g. when you extract data from a database (search engines, flight schedules, news service). Depending upon your keyword you might get zero, one, two or 500 entries back. To extract this data you need to divide your macro into two separate macros as described here. Your second macro consists of just one extraction tag for one line of the table, e.g.:
EXTRACT POS={{mypos}} TYPE=TXT ATTR=<TD<SP>noWrap>*EUR*
After replaying the first macro, which navigates to the results, you need to loop through the results by changing the POS parameter, i.e. the mypos variable from 1 to 999. This line would be the content of the "macro_extract" macro in the source code sample below. It extracts the EUR price on each line.
Once you get the #EANF# message back instead of a result you know that you reached the end of the table on the current page.
If necessary, you can now run another macro to click on a "NEXT" link for another page of results. If no "NEXT" link is found then you know that you are done.
Here is a Visual Basic source code snippet, that shows how the different macros are used:
'Read keywords For i1 = 1 To 999 '<<<<<<<<< LOOP Keywords until all words processed (=> Read_Line returns "ERROR") sKeyword = Read_Line(mFileInput, i1) 'Read keyword from a text file If sKeyword = "ERROR" Or Len(sKeyword) < 2 Then Exit For End If iRet = iim1.iimDisplay("Search: " + sKeyword) iRet = iim1.iimSet("-var_search", sKeyword) iRet = iim1.iimPlay("macro_search") sData = iim1.iimGetLastExtract() iRet = iim1.iimDisplay("Extract: " + sKeyword) For i2 = 1 To 999 '<<<<<<<<<<<<<LOOP "next" links 'Loop all NEXT links until error => no more NEXT links to process) For i3 = 1 To 999 '<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< LOOP table lines and extract them 'Loop the table rows until an error occurs => no more data on this page DoEvents iRet = iim1.iimSet("-var_mypos", CStr(i3)) ' iRet = iim1.iimDisplay(sKeyword + "P:" + CStr(i2) + "L:" + CStr(i3)) iRet = iim1.iimPlay("macro_extract") sData = iim1.iimGetLastExtract() If iRet = 1 and len (sData) > 0 Then s1 = iim1.iimGetLastExtract(1) s2 = iim1.iimGetLastExtract(2) s3 = iim1.iimGetLastExtract(3) 'Check if data found, and save it to a file i = InStr(s0, "#EANF#") If i <= 0 Then sLine = sKeyword + sSep + CStr(i2) + sSep + CStr(i3) + sSep + s1 + sSep + s2 + sSep + s3 Call Write_Line(mFileOutput, sLine) Else Exit For 'next page End If Else Exit For 'next page End If 'iRet Next 'table rows loop iRet = iim1.iimDisplay(sKeyword + " Page: " + CStr(i2)) iRet = iim1.iimPlay("macro_next") If iRet < 0 Then Exit For 'next keyword End If Next 'NEXT links loop Next 'Keyword list loop iRet = iim1.iimDisplay("Extraction completed")
Note: The support functions used in this example are:
Function Read_Line(sFile, iline) As String Dim sValue Dim i As Integer Dim bFound As Boolean bFound = False Open sFile For Input As #1 i = 1 Do While (Not EOF(1) And bFound = False) Input #1, sValue If i = iline Then bFound = True i = i + 1 Loop Close #1 If bFound = False Then sValue = "ERROR" End If Read_Line = sValue End Function Public Sub Write_Line(sFile, sLine) Open sFile For Append As #2 Print #2, sLine Close #2 End Sub
Sometimes web forms contain internal data that is passed between pages in hidden input fields. Since you can not see these fields you can not record extracting visually, but you can edit the recorded macro afterwards. How this is done is described under extract.
Q: How do I extract text from a (Javascript) message box?
You only need to add:
SET !EXTRACTDIALOG YES
to your macro and the text of a message box is extracted. The text is processed the same way as standard extracted text. Examples of Javascript dialogs can be found in the demo macros "Demo-JavascriptDialog" and "Demo-OfflineDialogs".
Q: Sometimes multiple items inside one cell are separated by <br> instead of creating individual cells for the data. How do I extract data separated with <br>?
To work around this problem use the TYPE=HTM extraction. It preserves all HTML tags inside the text so that the extraction result can be separated later. See also the "Demo-Extract" example macro for more details.
Q: How do I extract the page URL?
The URL of the current page is stored in the internal variable {{!URLCURRENT}}. You can use this value inside commands like any other variable, or extract it by assigning the value to the EXTRACT command:
SET !EXTRACTADD {{!URLCURRENT}}
Q: How do I extract the content of an Input Box?
If you already recorded a macro, check if the extraction TAG command contains the "CONTENT" parameter. If if does, delete it.
Creating the extraction command semi-manually (without the Extraction Wizard):
- When recording, click the input box(which is recorded as a TAG command)
- After recording:
- Add "EXTRAXT=TXT" to this TAG
- Delete the CONTENT parameter ("CONTENT=...") from this TAG
The result then looks like
TAG POS=1 TYPE=INPUT:TEXT FORM=NAME:form1 ATTR=ID:TF2 EXTRACT=TXT