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Show HN: I created a browser automation tool

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21–30 of 56 posts

Re: Show HN: I created a browser automation tool

#21
post #19

> Periodically check for changes I remember a Firefox extension that notified me with the diffs of changed pages. I don't remember exactly what I was using it for. I think something related to CVEs for some keywords. Then the service I was using shut down and I lost tracks of that extension.

Distill Web Monitor? https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/distill-web-m...

Re: Show HN: I created a browser automation tool

#22
post #19

> Periodically check for changes I remember a Firefox extension that notified me with the diffs of changed pages. I don't remember exactly what I was using it for. I think something related to CVEs for some keywords. Then the service I was using shut down and I lost tracks of that extension.

Perhaps Distill Web Monitor or PageProbe?

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/distill-web-m...

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pageprobe/

Re: Show HN: I created a browser automation tool

#23
post #7

There's a chrome extension that records all your steps and then generates a puppeteer/playwright script for you. Then you can just edit bits of that script and run it. This is my go-to method presently. I feel like you could incorporate some of those features into this and eliminate some of the manual entry of css selectors.

Oh, interesting. What is the name of that extension?

Probably this: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/headless-recorder/...

Re: Show HN: I created a browser automation tool

#24
post #7

There's a chrome extension that records all your steps and then generates a puppeteer/playwright script for you. Then you can just edit bits of that script and run it. This is my go-to method presently. I feel like you could incorporate some of those features into this and eliminate some of the manual entry of css selectors.

Oh, interesting. What is the name of that extension?

You can do it in the chrome browser tools! There's a record section. Note if you're doing this for automation testing it's going to be pretty flakey and you're better off following best practices and using custom testing selectors instead :)

Re: Show HN: I created a browser automation tool

#25
post #10
post #7

There's a chrome extension that records all your steps and then generates a puppeteer/playwright script for you. Then you can just edit bits of that script and run it. This is my go-to method presently. I feel like you could incorporate some of those features into this and eliminate some of the manual entry of css selectors.

I just started using a Selenium IDE + selenium-side-runner for headless automation. Is puppeteer or Selenium a more widely supported tool?

Selenium is the most popular tool in the industry but mostly for legacy reasons, its real competitor is Cypress. If you've just started a project I'd recommend checking it out, a huge time saver is that you install it as an npm package with a headless browser out the box without any webdriver/infra stuff slowing you down.

Re: Show HN: I created a browser automation tool

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, interesting. What is the name of that extension?

You can do it in the chrome browser tools! There's a record section. Note if you're doing this for automation testing it's going to be pretty flakey and you're better off following best practices and using custom testing selectors instead :)

Why is it flakey for automation testing though? In my experience that's basically targeting page elements and interacting with them. Doesn't this do the same thing?

Re: Show HN: I created a browser automation tool

#27
post #7

There's a chrome extension that records all your steps and then generates a puppeteer/playwright script for you. Then you can just edit bits of that script and run it. This is my go-to method presently. I feel like you could incorporate some of those features into this and eliminate some of the manual entry of css selectors.

Oh, interesting. What is the name of that extension?

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/headless-recorder/...

Re: Show HN: I created a browser automation tool

#28
post #7

There's a chrome extension that records all your steps and then generates a puppeteer/playwright script for you. Then you can just edit bits of that script and run it. This is my go-to method presently. I feel like you could incorporate some of those features into this and eliminate some of the manual entry of css selectors.

Browserflow https://browserflow.app is excellent!

Re: Show HN: I created a browser automation tool

#30
Curious what your pricing strategy is here? The free offering is cool for sure. Guess you'll learn how serious users may want to actually use the service, what that means for your unit costs, and how it all scales in your favor? or sort of already figured that out?
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