Automate and Record Tasks with Firefox

Posted by Martin in Browsing, firefox  Tags: , , ,

10

Jul



Shame on me that I did not discover this firefox extension earlier. Selenium IDE is a firefox extension that is able to automate, record and playback tasks in firefox. It has therefor more than one purposes but here is a great one that you will like. Many people do the same tasks when they start their browsers, check their webmail accounts, log into a forum they visit and check for the latest items on eBay for example.

Would not it be great if all this could be done with the click of a mouse button ? Ok, some more clicks but still a lot less than performing all those tasks by hand one after another. You will have to record the task(s) once which simply involves starting the extension and moving, typing and writing exactly as you always do. Selenium records all action and you are able to save it afterwards.

You´ll unfortunatly have to load it whenever you want to replay the task. It therefor makes only sense to me to record and save tasks that involve lots of writing, moving and clicking. Maybe there is a way to store them in your Bookmarks toolbar but I have not found a way to do so. It would be awesome if this would be possible. (Bare with me, I´am using the extension for 10 minutes..)

Seleniums main purpose is web application testing. It (not the firefox extension of course) runs in most popular browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera. Instead of looking at / or testing webpages in different browsers you record the task once and play it in every browser afterwards.
Take a look at a presentation video of selenium ide that shows how to record and play tasks.


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5 Users Commented In This Post

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How to Automate and Record Tasks with Firefox » Infinity Labs says:

[...] This is a very cool "plugin" for Firefox that i can see being abused to hell by spammers but I’m going to post it anyway.  Selenium IDE is a Firefox Extension which allows you to automate, record and also playback everyday tasks in FireFox. Most people have a daily routine of sites they visit, blogs they read, and email accounts they check and now instead of typing URLs for hours you can go through them all with a single click of the mouse.   The extension acts as a macro in a wayso at first you need to record your daily routine.  Once you record that into the extension you are able to save it and then load it up and with a click of a mouse replay it.  Via Ghacks Bookmark:             [...]

GeorgeL says:

Try Newbie, http://www.newbielabs.com, it works great for automating Firefox using JavaScripts.

Here’s a flash demo: http://www.newbielabs.com/FirefoxJS.htm

eBay Information Blog » Blog Archive » Article from Google Hacks - Automate and Record Tasks with Firefox says:

[...] Blog Name: Google Hacks Article Title: Automate and Record Tasks with Firefox Shame on me that I did not discover this firefox extension earlier. Selenium IDE is a firefox extension that is able to automate, record and playback tasks in firefox. It has therefor more than one purposes but here is a great one that you will like…. [...]

Francis Weider says:

I use iMacros with very good success, see http://www.iopus.com/imacros

Francis

Bill Steven says:

The problem I have with IMacros is that they invented their own quirky propietary automation language. You can’t debug it. You can call it from any scripting language but the automation part is self contained, so you will have to use 2 different languages. Do they even run on Firefox? I’ve searched their website and online help and could find anything. Post the link if it exists.

Thanks,
Bill

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