Click an HTML link inside a WebBrowser Control

Question

C# Visual Studio 2010

I am loading a complex html page into a webbrowser control. But, I don't have the ability to modify the webpage. I want to click a link on the page automatically from the windows form. But, the ID appears to be randomly generated each time the page is loaded (so I believe referencing the ID will not work).

This is the content of the a href link:

<a

id="u_lp_id_58547" href="javascript:void(0)" class="SGLeftPanelText" onclick="setStoreParams('cases;212', 212); window.leftpanel.onClick('cases_ss_733');return false; ">

My Assigned</a>

Is the anyway to click the link from C#?

Thanks!

UPDATE:

I feel like this is close but it is just not working:

HtmlElementCollection links = helpdeskWebBrowser.Document.Window.Frames["main_pending_events_frame"].Document.GetElementsByTagName("a"); MessageBox.Show(links.Count.ToString());

I have tried plugging in every single frame name and tried both "a" and "A" in the TagName field but just have not had any luck. I can just not find any links; the message box is always 0. What am I missing?

Garett · Accepted Answer · 2010-08-14 05:16:51Z

17

Something like this should work:

HtmlElement link = webBrowser.Document.GetElementByID("u_lp_id_58547") link.InvokeMember("Click")

EDIT:

Since the IDs are generated randomly, another option may be to identify the links by their InnerText; along these lines.

HtmlElementCollection links = webBrowser.Document.GetElementsByTagName("A"); foreach (HtmlElement link in links) { if (link.InnerText.Equals("My Assigned")) link.InvokeMember("Click"); }

UPDATE:

You can get the links within an IFrame using:

webBrowser.Document.Window.Frames["MyIFrame"].Document.GetElementsByTagName("A");

edited Aug 14, 2010 at 5:16

answered Aug 13, 2010 at 18:15

Garett

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6 Comments

John Gardner Over a year ago

but the question says "But, the ID appears to be randomly generated each time the page is loaded (so I believe referencing the ID will not work)."

Josh Over a year ago

John, you are correct -- the links get a random number assigned to them each time you open the page. This method is what I keep coming across in my searches but I can't figure out another way to implement it without using the ID. The 'cases_ss_733' is always the same, I just don't know how that could be used.

Garett Over a year ago

@John. Yes you're right, but the randomly generated id portion was added after my initial response. @Josh. Could you identify the link by the InnerText value?

Josh Over a year ago

I believe that has me really close Garett! Thank you for following up. I tested it and I did not work but I believe that's because the My Assigned link is buried within an iFrame. I tried inserting a MessageBox.Show(link.InnerText) above the if statement and nothing came up. So then I did a View Source on the frameset page and ran a find for <a and nothing came up. So that makes sense but now the question is, can I get to the link that's embedded in an iFrame. (and thank you so much for the help!)

Josh Over a year ago

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! I finally figured out it was buried under and additional frame. Once I got drilled down into the second level of frames I found the My Assigned link. Thanks again Garett!

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JcMaltaDev · Accepted Answer · 2010-08-13 19:09:49Z

Perhaps you will have to isolate the link ID value using more of the surrounding HTML context as a "target" and then extract the new random ID.

In the past I have used the "HtmlAgilityPack" to easily parse "screen-scraped" HTML to isolate areas of interest within a page - this library seems to be easy to use and reliable.

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