How to intercept and manipulate a Internet Explorer popup with VBA

Question

Language/Software:

The language is VBA. The application is Access 2003 (I also can use Excel) and Internet Explorer (on Windows XP/Seven).

The problem:

I'm developing a Access macro which opens and manipulates a intranet site of the enterprise where I work.

I can create new IE windows and fill data in the forms, but I need to be able of intercept and manipulate other IE windows, such as popups, which opens when I click on a link, when I choose an option of a select element or when the page is loaded.

Answer 1

Here's some code I use to get an IE window from it's title. It's split into two functions because one of my users was having an extremely odd problem where an error was not being caught properly. You might (probably will) be able to move the body of the private function into the public function.

Additionally, you'll need to set a reference to Microsoft Internet Controls (this is either shdocvw.dll or ieframe.dll, depending on your version of Windows) and I'd recommend setting a reference to Microsoft HTML Object Library to make it easier to traverse the DOM once you have your IE object.

Function oGetIEWindowFromTitle(sTitle As String, _
                               Optional bCaseSensitive As Boolean = False, _
                               Optional bExact As Boolean = False) As SHDocVw.InternetExplorer

    Dim objShellWindows As New SHDocVw.ShellWindows
    Dim found As Boolean
    Dim startTime As Single

    found = False
    'Loop through shell windows
    For Each oGetIEWindowFromTitle In objShellWindows
        found = oGetIEWindowFromTitleHandler(oGetIEWindowFromTitle, sTitle, bCaseSensitive, bExact)
        If found Then Exit For
    Next

    'Check whether a window was found
    If Not found Then
        Set oGetIEWindowFromTitle = Nothing
    Else
        pauseUntilIEReady oGetIEWindowFromTitle
    End If

End Function

Private Function oGetIEWindowFromTitleHandler(win As SHDocVw.InternetExplorer, _
                                      sTitle As String, _
                                      bCaseSensitive As Boolean, _
                                      bExact As Boolean) As Boolean

    oGetIEWindowFromTitleHandler = False

    On Error GoTo handler
    'If the document is of type HTMLDocument, it is an IE window
    If TypeName(win.Document) = "HTMLDocument" Then
        'Check whether the title contains the passed title
        If bExact Then
            If (win.Document.title = sTitle) Or ((Not bCaseSensitive) And (LCase(sTitle) = LCase(win.Document.title))) Then oGetIEWindowFromTitleHandler = True
        Else
            If InStr(1, win.Document.title, sTitle) Or ((Not bCaseSensitive) And (InStr(1, LCase(win.Document.title), LCase(sTitle), vbTextCompare) <> 0)) Then oGetIEWindowFromTitleHandler = True
        End If
    End If
handler:
    'We assume here that if an error is raised it's because
    'the window is not of the correct type. Therefore we
    'simply ignore it and carry on.

End Function

Use the above code as follows:

Sub test()

    Dim ie As SHDocVw.InternetExplorer
    Dim doc As HTMLDocument 'If you have a reference to the HTML Object Library
    'Dim doc as Object 'If you do not have a reference to the HTML Object Library

    ' Change the title here as required
    Set ie = oGetIEWindowFromTitle("My popup window")
    Set doc = ie.Document

    Debug.Print doc.getElementsByTagName("body").Item(0).innerText

End Sub

You can find a window from almost any property of the window, or it's document contents. If you're struggling with this, please comment :).