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Case Study: Talking to a mock auction site.

This Case Study Demonstrates:

• PixieRobot as robot tester for your own web app building - used to TEST URL links.
• PixieRobot as robot web-surfer - follow URL's and submit forms.
• PixieRobot as robot web-scraper - search for and evaluate data embedded in the HTML.

The Mock Auction web site, that runs against the supplied demo script (MockAuction), is found on the public internet at:
http://mail.thetotal.co.nz:7301/PxFBF1/prc1.asp
You can and should also visit the application manually to get the idea of how it works before proceeding.

This website's source code (ASP files starting with PRCn) is supplied as source code for running on your own IIS
or PWS webserver. Find it in your PixieRobot subfolder "PixieR2". Starting file is "prc1.asp"
For more information on how to use such a web-server, refer to PixieWeb documentation at: Web-Server Set-Up

To test-run using our site:

1. Click on PixieRobot.exe, The PixieRobot icon will appear in the Windows Task Manager.
2. Click on the PixieRobot icon to expand it's console.
3. Click "Config" and "WWW" tab.
4. Type "MockAuction.txt" in the script box.
5. Click "OK" twice.
6. Run PixieRobot by clicking - Menu:WWW --> Immediate (hotkey = F7)
7. PixieRobot's "WWW Monitor" will appear. If it doesn't, close the Monitor and Console,
   and check that the MockAuction script contains the following statement - "Monitor = True".
   If not type it in as the second line of the MockAuction script. You may use NotePad.
   
8. Otherwise the "WWWMonitor" will show you the steps that are being dictated by the script.
9. Upon completion the Console, and PixieRobots "Logbook" will show entries like the following
   ********** STARTUP PixieRobot ver 2.1.0.22
   8/7/2003 2:42:09 PM: STARTING WWW PROCESS onInterval 8/7/2003 2:42:09 PM
   8/7/2003 2:42:13 PM: SUCCESS Step 1: found Login page.
   8/7/2003 2:42:19 PM: SUCCESS Step 2: found welcome page, attempting navigation to page 3.
   8/7/2003 2:42:24 PM: .......................
   8/7/2003 2:42:24 PM: END OF WWW PROCESS onInterval 8/7/2003 2:42:24 PM
   

In addition to the above, you may test-run on your own site. You will need to edit file "MockAuction.txt"
to point to your own webserver. This usually means changing the URL in Step 1 to something like
"http://localhost/mockauction/prc1.asp".

"MockAuction.txt" is supplied with a config line   Monitor=True. This makes the browser visible
within the "WWWMonitor" so you can see the navigation happen. While in this mode, PixieRobot
pauses each step for a default 8 sec. This is to give you time to save files to disk for analysis.
For example a "right click" and click "view source" will place the HTML of the current page in NotePad.
You can click "Continue" to move it along, or edit the setting:
Menu:Config --> WWW --> MonitorPause parameter.

When you get "MockAuction" running, you can advance to changing the script config line to
Monitor = False . This runs the browser session invisibly and without pauses so giving you the best
indication of speed.

This is the resulting console display for a successful run.

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