Question

I’m being slowly driven mad at work having to manually gather data contained within an ActiveX object running in Internet Explorer 8. It’s essentially a ticket system containing some key customer details etc. which I must copy and paste a lot more than is healthy.

Where would I start looking for a solution that will allow me to grab the data I want and navigate the ActiveX system programmatically?

Ideally I’d be thinking of writing something in Java or C# but I’m open to any suggestions!

Answer 1

Unless the ActiveX you are interested in exposes information through public interface (in which case you can injected JavaScript on page to read data) you’ll have to use some form of screen scraping. If the control has regular input controls it should not be too hard, but if everything rendered directly you may need OCR the images…

Injecting script:

• use WebBrowser control and “eval” your script on the page – some communication sample is here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/a0746166%28v=VS.85%29.aspx, eventually you’ll need InvokeScript – http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.htmldocument.invokescript%28v=VS.85%29.aspx
• use normal IE automation http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa752084%28v=vs.85%29.aspx.
• for one-time use “javascript:” in address bar or just developer tools (F12).
• utilize XSS vulnerabilities of the site (half kidding, don’t forget to fix whatever you find afterwards if you own the site, as for reporting errors to third party consult your conscience)