NAME

WWW::Mechanize::Firefox::Cookbook - Recipes for using WWW::Mechanize::Firefox

Introduction

Note that WWW::Mechanize::Firefox is quite similar in its API to WWW::Mechanize, so many of the recipes in WWW::Mechanize::Cookbook apply to it as well.

Basics

Launch WWW::Mechanize::Firefox

  use WWW::Mechanize::Firefox;
  my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new();
  $mech->get('http://google.com');

Launch WWW::Mechanize::Firefox if Firefox is not running

  use WWW::Mechanize::Firefox;
  my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new(
      launch => '/path/to/firefox',
  );
  $mech->get('http://google.com');

Use an existing tab

  use WWW::Mechanize::Firefox;
  my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new(
      tab => qr/^Google/,
  );
  $mech->get('http://google.com');

Use the current tab

  use WWW::Mechanize::Firefox;
  my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new(
      tab => 'current',
  );
  $mech->get('http://google.com');

Fetch a page to a file

  use WWW::Mechanize::Firefox;
  my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new(
      tab => 'current',
  );
  $mech->get('http://google.com',
      ':content_file' => 'google_com.html' );

Fetch a page to a file with all images

  use WWW::Mechanize::Firefox;
  my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new(
      tab => 'current',
  );
  $mech->get('http://google.com');
  $mech->save_content('google_com.html', 'google_com files');

UI interaction

Keep the tab open after your program quits

In the case that you want to navigate the user to a specific place and then take over manually, you can prevent the automatic closing of the browser tab. Either create your $mech object like this:

  my $mech = WWW::Mechanize::Firefox->new(
      autoclose => 0,
  );

or decide at runtime whether to close the tab:

  $mech->autoclose_tab(0);

This does currently not work.

Get notified when the current tab changes

    my $browser = $mech->repl->expr('window.getBrowser()');

    my $eventlistener = progress_listener(
        $browser,
        onLocationChange => \&onLocationChange,
    );

    while (1) {
        $mech->repl->poll();
        sleep 1;
    };

Images

Save the current page as PNG

This will take a "screenshot" which also includes plugins like Flash.

  my $png = $mech->content_as_png();
  open my $fh, '>', 'page.png'
      or die "Couldn't save to 'page.png': $!";
  binmode $fh;
  print {$fh} $png;
  close $fh;

Also see the file screenshot.pl included and installed through the distribution.

Save top left corner of the current page as PNG

  my $rect = {
    left  =>    0,
    top   =>    0,
    width  => 200,
    height => 200,
  };
  my $png = $mech->content_as_png(undef, $rect);
  open my $fh, '>', 'page.png'
      or die "Couldn't save to 'page.png': $!";
  binmode $fh;
  print {$fh} $png;
  close $fh;

Javascript

Check that your Page has no Javascript compile errors

  $mech->get('mypage');
  my @errors = map {$_->{message}} $mech->js_errors();
  if (@errors) {
      die "Found errors on page: @errors";
  };

Override the Javascript alert() function

  $mech->eval_in_page('alert("Hello");',
      { alert => sub { print "Captured alert: '@_'\n" } }
  );

Set a value without triggering Javascript events

Just pass empty lists for the lists of events to invoke

  $mech->field( 'myfield', 'myvalue', [], [] );

Not working yet

Upload a file to an ftp server

Not implemented - this requires instantiating and passing a nsIURI object instead of a nsILocalFile .

You can use ->save_url to transfer files. $localname can be a local filename, a file:// URL or any other URL that allows uploads, like ftp://.

  $mech->save_url('file://path/to/my/file.txt'
      => 'ftp://myserver.example/my/file.txt');

AUTHOR

Max Maischein corion@cpan.org

Contributed examples contain the original author's name.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2010, Max Maischein.

All Rights Reserved. This module is free software. It may be used, redistributed and/or modified under the same terms as Perl itself.

cpanm WWW::Mechanize::Firefox

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install WWW::Mechanize::Firefox