My Last Three Blogs Offer a Basic Introduction to Installing and Running the Chrome.ahk Web Page Automation Tools—Find More Resources for these Useful Functions

In my earlier blogs, I posted a beginner’s introduction to GeekDude’s Chrome.ahk Web page automation tools:

• Installing Chrome.ahk AutoHotkey Web Page Automation Tools
• Using Chrome.ahk AutoHotkey Tools to Automatically Fill-in Web Forms (Part 1)
• Using Chrome.ahk AutoHotkey Tools to Automatically Fill-in Web Forms (Part 2)

I wrote these columns to bridge the gap between the novice-level user and the videos produced by GeekDude and Joe Glines—even causing me to take time to allow the techniques to ferment in my brainpan. While the videos provide excellent information, they assume a certain level of user experience. Hopefully, my blogs provide enough insight to allow new users to:

1. Develop a basic understanding of how Chrome.ahk functions facilitate the completion of Web forms while highlighting the complications from HTML and Javascript code.
2. Make a decision about whether they will continue to pursue these Web automation techniques.

After this reference blog, unless someone asks me specific questions about Chrome.ahk, I intend to move on to other topics.

I think the Chrome.ahk functions act as important additions to anyone’s AutoHotkey toolbox. I just don’t have an immediate need to do Web page automation. I have no doubt that many people will find a great deal of benefit for their personal applications.

My favorite AutoHotkey Internet use extracts data from Web pages—or what many people call “Web scraping”—”Discussion 5” below. My scripts directly download the Web page source code, then, using Regular Expressions (RegEx), parses the critical data—as in the IPFind.ahk script for locating IP addresses worldwide (see A Beginner’s Guide to Using Regular Expressions in AutoHotkey) and the SynonymLookup.ahk script.

The requirement to load Web browsing software highlights a major drawback to using Chrome.ahk tools. That process often takes a great deal of time while the direct download of the source code found in my apps bypasses the Web browser providing a quicker response time.

For those people who want to continue developing their Chrome.ahk skills, GeekDude and Joe Glines produced hours of videos digging into how to use the tools. Joe Glines posted the following list of those Chrome.ahk videos:

GeekDude wrote a Chrome Class (Github and Forum link) that lets AutoHotkey connect to Chrome without any additional software. I asked GeekDude to help us mere-mortals understand how to use his Chrome class. Below are the interviews and notes I wrote after speaking with him.

GeekDude, thank you so much for taking the time to walk me through this! The entire AutoHotkey community is benefiting from your work and we’re all (me especially) very grateful!

If you’re loving this, please consider donating to GeekDude!

Below is content from my main Chrome page. I’ll do my best to keep this page up to date however you may want to check it for updates in case I forget this post.

Discussion 1: Some background about how we’re connecting to Chrome through the Debug Window

Discussion 2: Connecting & starting a page in Chrome with AutoHotkey

Discussion 3: Navigating to a page and Setting text

Discussion 4: Automating Chrome to Set Text and click a button

Discussion 5: Getting data from page (part 1)

Discussion 6: Getting lists from page (part 2)

Discussion 7: Managing Chrome profiles

Discussion 8: Handling EventListeners and custom Edit fields

AHK Podcast: Jackie shows how to adapt Chrome.ahk to drive Edge. Here’s a link to the files he created

Quoted from the Web Post “Automating Chrome with AutoHotkey: Tutorials by GeekDude, author of Chrome.ahk“

Check the AutoHotkey forum for more information about Chrome.ahk.