filling a html auto search box and obtaining the results - html

Question

I am trying to fill in a search box on a web page that as it is filled in it auto searches for the results. The website is https://pcpartpicker.com/products/motherboard/. If you go there and type in a motherboard manufacturer of motherboard name you can see how it begins to narrow down the possible selections. I have code that will fill in the search box but nothing happens.
Sub GetMotherboards()
Dim ie As InternetExplorer
Set ie = New InternetExplorer
Dim doc As HTMLDocument
Dim objText As DataObject
Dim objArticleContents As Object
Dim objLinksCollection As Object
Dim objToClipBoard As DataObject
Dim r As Object
Dim prodRating As String
Dim prodName As String
Dim lngNumberOfVideos As Long
Dim strURL As String
Dim strNewString As String, strStr As String, strTestChar As String
Dim bFlag As Boolean
strURL = "https://pcpartpicker.com/products/motherboard/" ' Range("J5").Value
With ie
.navigate strURL
.Visible = True
Do While .readyState <> 4: DoEvents: Loop
Application.Wait Now + #12:00:02 AM#
Set doc = ie.document
End With
bFlag = False
With doc
Set objArticleContents = .getElementsByClassName("subTitle__form")
Stop
Set ele = .getElementsByClassName("subTitle__form")(0)
Set form = .getElementsByClassName("subTitle__form")(0).getElementsByClassName("form-label xs-inline")(1)
Set inzputz = ele.getElementsByClassName("text-input")(0)
Call .getElementsByClassName("text-input")(0).setAttribute("placeholder", "MSI B450 TOMAHAWK") '.setAttribute("part_category_search", "MSI B450 TOMAHAWK")
End With
End Sub
After reading some posts here (which I now can't find) my thinking is that there is/ are event listeners and functions that need to be included in this code but that is over my head. Could someone please help me figure this out.
Tim Williams has a post here (an answer to a post) which discussed this but now I can't find it.

Answer 1

You can avoid the expense of a browser and perform the same xhr GET request the page does that returns json. You will need a json parser to handle the response.
Json library:
I use jsonconverter.bas. Download raw code from here and add to standard module called JsonConverter . You then need to go VBE > Tools > References > Add reference to Microsoft Scripting Runtime. Remove the top Attribute line from the copied code.
I show a partial implementation which makes requests for different categories and products and uses both full and partial string searches. It is a partial implementation in that I read responses into json objects and also print the json strings but do not attempt to access all items within json object. That can be refined upon more detail from you. For demo puposes I access ("result")("data") which gives you the price and name info. Part of the original response json has html as value for accessor ("result")("html"). This has description info e.g.Socket/CPU with motherboard items.
Option Explicit
Public Sub ProductSearches()
Dim xhr As Object, category As String, items()
Set xhr = CreateObject("MSXML2.XMLHTTP")
category = "motherboard"
items = Array("Gigabyte B450M DS3H", "MSI B450 TOMAHAWK", "random string")
PrintListings items, xhr, category
category = "memory"
items = Array("Corsair Vengeance") 'partial search
PrintListings items, xhr, category
End Sub
Public Function GetListings(ByVal xhr As Object, ByVal category As String, ByVal item As String) As Object
Dim json As Object
With xhr
.Open "GET", "https://pcpartpicker.com/products/" & category & "/fetch/?xslug=&location=&search=" & item, False
.setRequestHeader "User-Agent", "Mozilla/5.0"
.send
Set json = JsonConverter.ParseJson(.responseText)("result")("data")
Set GetListings = json
End With
End Function
Public Sub PrintListings(ByRef items(), ByVal xhr As Object, ByVal category As String)
'Partially implemented. You need to decide what to do with contents of json object
Dim json As Object, i As Long
For i = LBound(items) To UBound(items)
Set json = GetListings(xhr, category, items(i))
'Debug.Print Len(JsonConverter.ConvertToJson(json)) ' Len(JsonConverter.ConvertToJson(json)) =2 i.e {} then no results
Debug.Print JsonConverter.ConvertToJson(json) 'demo purposes only
'do something with json
Next
End Sub
Json parsing:
Read about using JsonConverter and parsing json in vba here, here and here.

Answer 2

You need to execute the keyup event after you place your value into your textbox.
You can accomplish this by using the execScript method.
So, after you load the webpage, create a variable for your input/textbox. In the below example, it's tb. Set the .Value property to your search text (which I used "MSI") then fire the keyup event via script.
Dim tb As HTMLInputElement
Set tb = IE.document.getElementById("part_category_search")
tb.Value = "MSI"
IE.document.parentWindow.execScript "$('#part_category_search').keyup()"
I am not overly familiar with jQuery, so this script targets all inputs on the webpage. But I've tested it and it works for your search.
Here was the full code I used in testing if you want to shorten yours:
Dim IE As InternetExplorer
Set IE = New InternetExplorer
IE.Visible = True
IE.navigate "https://pcpartpicker.com/products/motherboard/"
Do While IE.Busy Or IE.readyState < 4
DoEvents
Loop
Dim tb As HTMLInputElement
Set tb = IE.document.getElementById("part_category_search")
tb.Value = "MSI"
IE.document.parentWindow.execScript "$('#part_category_search').keyup()"