I am trying to wrap my head around some concepts and trying to extend the help desk exercise in the process. What I am trying to accomplish is the following:
Within the site, create a "re-usable" page and create multiple links in the navigation like:
https://sites.google.com/a/mydomain.org/helpdesk/tickets?status=new
https://sites.google.com/a/mydomain.org/helpdesk/tickets?status=open
This Page, contains an HTML Service which reads the query string parameters and proceeds to query a spreadsheet for all tickets with the specified status and that are assigned to the current user, then displays them in a table format.
Then on the table, on each line, there will be a button that says "add solution or comment", this will open a UI service that allows the user to enter some text and change status if necessary.
So my questions are:
Does this sound feasible? Can I call a UI service from an HTML template service?
Can the HTML Service read the query string parameters?
Any examples of this?
Thanks for your feedback.
You can not mix UI service with HTML service. Once you're using one you have to stick with it.
But what you described can be easily done using either one. i.e. showing a table with some info and a button per row, that will show a textbox. So, yes, this is perfectly feasible.
Reading the url parameters can be easily done on "server-side", that is, it's independent if you're using Html or Ui Services.
Example of reading parameters? Here it is:
function doGet(e) {
var status = e.parameter.status;
if( status == 'new' ) {
//do your thing
} else if( status == 'open' ) {
//just examples
} else
;//bad status
return appOrHtml;
}
Related
Before I used Codeigniter I had a page show certain html as long as the url had no get parameters and then have some of the html be replaced by another as soon as something like this is set in the url:
localhost/signup.php?success
Now my question is, what is the best way to do this in Codeigniter? Would I have to use one of those parameters on the controller's function (which I still can't get my head around)? And if so, how? Or if I just had php logic in the view like I used to do in plain PHP, what would I check for if not a get parameter? Thanks.
Too many ways to achieve this certain thing.
routes.php
extending controller and using constructor so you apply rules for every extended controller
flashdata
Before you start please read up on frameworks watch some video tutorials on how to make simple blog system etc. I myself wouldn't just jump in to concept, study up.
I mentioned flashdata and that is how you do things done (success, alert, warning bars).
By default, GET parameters are not enabled or useful in codeigniter, but URI segments work the same way. So...
If you had a controller called, signup.php and a function inside it called success, you could link to that with:
localhost/signup/success
then if you loaded the URL helper, which I always do in config/autoload.php or just with:
$this->load->helper('url');
You could say:
if($this->uri->segment(2) == 'success') {
//Show success message or load a view for it...
}else {
//The second URI segment is NOT 'success' so do something else...
}
But... codeigniter is just a framework for PHP. If it's possible in PHP, it's possible in codeigniter. You can simply go into the config/config.php file and enable query strings, but I would strongly suggest using URI segments and reading up on them as well as the URL helper.
I'm trying to extract elements from a table, I have successfully used get and HTML:TableExtract to get elements of the table. The problem is the table is multi page and navigated with an arrow button to show additional pages. How would i extract these other pages as they are not new links but I think generated with JS or such?
Specifically I am trying to extract the table under Data for this Data Range at:
http://ycharts.com/companies/GOOG/pe_ratio#series=type:company,id:GOOG,calc:pe_ratio,,id:AAPL,type:company,calc:pe_ratio,,id:AMZN,type:company,calc:pe_ratio&zoom=3&startDate=&endDate=&format=real&recessions=false
See how there is the Viewing x of 45 and the First, Previous, Next, Last button.
The rest of the table elements can be viewed with next, how would i extract these in perl?
Update::
Hi Simbabque, Thanks for the response.
So I see if you click on next it calls:
ng-click="getHistoricalData(historicalData.currentPage+1)"
Is there a way I can call this method? I tried to use click,but it is not bound a name. (JS?)
I was trying to use Mechanize::Firefox now but I feel like their must be an easy way to use regular Mech and call the function and re-read the page?
The website builds up the tables using AJAX requests. Those are a little harder to parse. You can use WWW::Mechanize to fetch the initial page and then hit the AJAX calls for the table. It helps you keep track of cookies and stuff automatically.
use strict; use warnings;
use WWW::Mechanize;
my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new;
$mech->get('http://ycharts.com/companies/GOOG/pe_ratio#series=type:company,id:GOOG,calc:pe_ratio,,id:AAPL,type:company,calc:pe_ratio,,id:AMZN,type:company,calc:pe_ratio&zoom=3&startDate=&endDate=&format=real&recessions=false');
my $response = $mech->post(
'http://ycharts.com/companies/GOOG/pe_ratio/data_ajax',
{
startDate => '1/1/1962',
endDate => '12/3/2013',
pageNum => 4,
}
);
if ( $response->is_success ) {
print $response->decoded_content; # or whatever
} else {
die $response->status_line;
}
This is just a basic example and will not work. It gives a 403 Forbidden. Probably there is more data required. Use Firebug or a similar tool to inspect what is happening. For example, there's another call to http://ping.chartbeat.net/ping?h=ycharts.com&p=%2Fcompanies%2FGOOG%2Fpe_ratio&u=o3m6snxteynby1b8&d=ycharts.com&g=20054&n=1&f=00001&c=10.81&x=200&y=1812&o=1663&w=658&j=30&R=0&W=1&I=0&E=109&e=6&b=1903&t=usmc0fjfd1j0h87g&V=16&_ happening automatically every now and again, with varying parameters. That is most likely required to keep the session going.
This page is pretty sophisticated. This might not be the best approach.
You could also try to use WWW::Mechanize::Firefox or even Selenium to remote-operate a browser. That will be better suited as it takes care of all the AJAX stuff that is happening.
Or you could look for a public API that just hands over that data voluntarily. I bet there is one around... or just pay for a ycharts pro account and hit the download button. ;-)
Ok so here is what is happening:
I have a client that I am building an application for. My client has a flowchart that they would like posted on the front page of their application. Check. My client then wants this flowchart to be set up as an image map so that a user could click one of the boxes in this flowchart and be taken to a report in another part of the application. Check.
All of that is elementary and, in a technical sense, works. The issue is, and it is an issue I have encountered before with APEX, is that every time a user clicks one of these links it takes them to the login screen. It seems that linking directly to a page's URL breaks the session and requires you to login again, even if you are linking from one page in the application to another in the same application.
I have played with all of the authentication settings in a hopes of fixing this and tried to determine what is breaking the session exactly but with no luck.
Has anyone else had this problem and could share their method for fixing it? I really cant have users logging in every time they click a link and I also cannot simply remove the authentication on the pages. Thanks in advance.
You should pass on the session id in your links. If you don't, then apex will see this as a new session. You can tell from the url: take note of the session id in your url when you are on your image map. When you select an application, take another look at the session id part in the url. If they are different, then you are starting a new session each time.
/apex/f?p=190:90:1674713700462259:::::
190 -> application id
90 -> page id
1674713700462259 -> Session id
To pass on the session, it depends where you construct your links.
In PLSQL, you can find it through :SESSION or :APP_SESSION
For example, in a plsql dynamic region: htp.p('the session id is '||:SESSION);
In javascript code you can use $v("pInstance") to retrieve the value dynamically, or use &APP_SESSION. which will have the value substituted at runtime.
Small example:
function printsome(){
var d = $("<div></div>");
d.text('&APP_SESSION. = ' + $v("pInstance"));
$("body").append(d);
};
So you probably just need to alter the construction of your link somewhat to include the session!
I was assuming the binding variables will do the job. But they were helpless.
Best way is to pass the current session id to an item then use the item value in the link.
f?p=&APP_ID.:32:&P31_SESSION.:::P32_CUSTOMER_ID:#CUSTOMER_ID#
My application is meant to speed up the retrieval of phone call information from our telephone system.
The best way to get this information is to create a new search on the telephone system's web interface and export the results to an Excel spreadsheet which my application then imports into a DataSet.
To get the export, from the login screen, the process goes as follows:
Log in
Navigate to Reports Page
Click "Extension Detail" link
Select "Extensions" CheckBox
Select the extensions (typically all the ones currently being used) from the listbox
Specify date range
Click on Export button
It's not a big job to do it manually every day, but, for reliability, it would be great if I can make my application do this automatically the first time it starts every day.
Since more than 1 person in the company is going to use this application, having a Windows Service do it would be even better.
I don't know if it'll help, but the system is Datatex Topaz Next Generation telephone management system: http://www.datatex.co.za/downloads/index.html#TNG
Can anyone give me a basic idea how to do this?
Also, can anyone post links (in comments if need be) to pages where I can learn more about how to do this?
I have done the something similar to fetch info from a website. I cannot give you a exact answer. But the idea is to send login info to the page with form values. If the site is relying on cookies, you can use this cookie aware WebClient:
public class CookieAwareWebClient : WebClient
{
private CookieContainer cookieContainer = new CookieContainer();
protected override WebRequest GetWebRequest(Uri address)
{
WebRequest request = base.GetWebRequest(address);
if (request is HttpWebRequest)
{
(request as HttpWebRequest).CookieContainer = cookieContainer;
}
return request;
}
}
You should be aware that some sites rely on a session id being passed so the first thing I did was to fetch the session id from the page:
var client = new CookieAwareWebClient();
client.Encoding = Encoding.UTF8;
var indexHtml = client.DownloadString(*index page url*);
string sessionID = fetchSessionID(indexHtml);
Then I had to log in to the page which you can do by uploading values to the page. You can see the specific form elements with "view source" but you have to know a little HTML to do so.
var values = new NameValueCollection();
values.Add("sessionid", sessionID); //Fetched session id
values.Add("brugerid", args[0]); //Username in my case
values.Add("adgangskode", args[1]); //Password in my case
values.Add("login", "Login"); //The login button
//Logging in
client.UploadValues(*url to login*, values); //If all goes perfect, I'm logged in now
And then I could download the page I needed. In your case you may use DownloadFile(...) if the file always have the same url (something like Export.aspx?From=2010-10-10&To=2010-11-11) or UploadValues(...) where you specify the values as before but saves the result.
string html = client.DownloadString(*url*);
It seems you have a lot more steps than I did. But the principle is the same. To see what values your send to the site to login etc. you can use programs such as Fiddler (windows) which can capture the activity going on. Essential you just do exactly the same thing but watch out for session id etc. which is temporary.
The best idea is really to use some native way to fetch data, but if don't got the code, database etc. you have to do it the ugly way. You may also need a HTML parser to fetch the data (ups, you don't because you export to a file). And last but not least, keep in mind that pages can change and there is great potential to fail to login, parse etc.
Please ask for if you are uncertain what is going on.
ADDITION
The CookieAwareWebClient is not my code:
http://code.google.com/p/gardens/source/browse/Montrics/Physical.MyPyramid/CookieAwareWebClient.cs?r=26
Using CookieContainer with WebClient class
I also found some relevant threads:
What's a good tool to screen-scrape with Javascript support?
http://forums.asp.net/t/1475637.aspx
With a HTTP client, you need to do the following:
Log in, using cookies or HTTP authentication
Request a page
Submit form data
This means that you need some class or component in your program that can do HTTP, cookies, authentication and forms. With this, you do the same requests a user would do.
Say a user is browsing a website, and then performs some action which changes the database (let's say they add a comment). When the request to actually add the comment comes in, however, we find we need to force them to login before they can continue.
Assume the login page asks for a username and password, and redirects the user back to the URL they were going to when the login was required. That redirect works find for a URL with only GET parameters, but if the request originally contained some HTTP POST data, that is now lost.
Can anyone recommend a way to handle this scenario when HTTP POST data is involved?
Obviously, if necessary, the login page could dynamically generate a form with all the POST parameters to pass them along (though that seems messy), but even then, I don't know of any way for the login page to redirect the user on to their intended page while keeping the POST data in the request.
Edit : One extra constraint I should have made clear - Imagine we don't know if a login will be required until the user submits their comment. For example, their cookie might have expired between when they loaded the form and actually submitted the comment.
This is one good place where Ajax techniques might be helpful. When the user clicks the submit button, show the login dialog on client side and validate with the server before you actually submit the page.
Another way I can think of is showing or hiding the login controls in a DIV tag dynamically in the main page itself.
You might want to investigate why Django removed this feature before implementing it yourself. It doesn't seem like a Django specific problem, but rather yet another cross site forgery attack.
2 choices:
Write out the messy form from the login page, and JavaScript form.submit() it to the page.
Have the login page itself POST to the requesting page (with the previous values), and have that page's controller perform the login verification. Roll this into whatever logic you already have for detecting the not logged in user (frameworks vary on how they do this). In pseudo-MVC:
CommentController {
void AddComment() {
if (!Request.User.IsAuthenticated && !AuthenticateUser()) {
return;
}
// add comment to database
}
bool AuthenticateUser() {
if (Request.Form["username"] == "") {
// show login page
foreach (Key key in Request.Form) {
// copy form values
ViewData.Form.Add("hidden", key, Request.Form[key]);
}
ViewData.Form.Action = Request.Url;
ShowLoginView();
return false;
} else {
// validate login
return TryLogin(Request.Form["username"], Request.Form["password"]);
}
}
}
Just store all the necessary data from the POST in the session until after the login process is completed. Or have some sort of temp table in the db to store in and then retrieve it. Obviously this is pseudo-code but:
if ( !loggedIn ) {
StorePostInSession();
ShowLoginForm();
}
if ( postIsStored ) {
RetrievePostFromSession();
}
Or something along those lines.
Collect the data on the page they submitted it, and store it in your backend (database?) while they go off through the login sequence, hide a transaction id or similar on the page with the login form. When they're done, return them to the page they asked for by looking it up using the transaction id on the backend, and dump all the data they posted into the form for previewing again, or just run whatever code that page would run.
Note that many systems, eg blogs, get around this by having login fields in the same form as the one for posting comments, if the user needs to be logged in to comment and isn't yet.
I know it says language-agnostic, but why not take advantage of the conventions provided by the server-side language you are using? If it were Java, the data could persist by setting a Request attribute. You would use a controller to process the form, detect the login, and then forward through. If the attributes are set, then just prepopulate the form with that data?
Edit: You could also use a Session as pointed out, but I'm pretty sure if you use a forward in Java back to the login page, that the Request attribute will persist.