Input Text

Under many cases, we may need to enter text on an input box, such as enter the product name on the search box at ebay.com. Here, we will need to define the "Input Text" operation for EasySpider to automatically input text when executing tasks.

Define Operation (at the Task Design stage)

The input text operation is very easy to define:

1. Select the textbox we want to enter text by right-click or F7.

2. Select the Input Text option, then input an example text.

3. Click "Confirm" button.

Then the "Input Text" operation will be added to the Workflow Manager.

Operation Properties

This section shows the available properties of "Input Text" operation in the Workflow Manager.

• Option Name: the option name, click the "Confirm" button to refresh the name after modification.

• Use text inside the Loop: whether enter the texts set in the "Loop" operation instead of the "Input Value" defined in this operation. This option will only appear when "Input Text" operation is inside the "Loop" operation. E.g., we can use this option to input more than one (such as 3) keywords into the "Search" textbox to collect 3 different product information, details will be provided later.

• Input Value: default input text to the textbox, can be modified in the execution stage.

• XPath: XPath of the textbox, generated by EasySpider and can be modified freely by user.

• Seconds after executed: how long should EasySpider wait after automatically input text into the textbox.

Execute Operation (at the Task Invocation stage)

Every "Input Text" operation will be mapped as an input parameter of the task, which can be modified when invoking the task.

User can modify the value freely when invoking the task:

Then EasySpider will enter "Computer" to the textbox when executing the task.