[tpm] [OT] Javascript to watch for certain KW from a web page

Shaun Fryer sfryer at sourcery.ca
Wed Oct 10 11:01:05 PDT 2012


Took a google search and a few secs of cut/paste. But if you don't
know what to search for/do, I know... So, no problem.
Btw, setInterval works too. Keep in mind that timer resolution however
is rarely accurate, and certainly not across browsers. If you use
setTimeout with a 1 millisec interval, it just punts the process to
the end of the current execution stack. You rarely get better than
that without creating a log jam. Not necessary info for your task, but
good to know stuff if you care to.
--
Shaun Fryer
647-709-6509
----------------------------------------------------------
perl -e 'print chr for map{$_+=22}($ARGV[0])=~/(\d\d)/g' \
        52959394107588899482799210587992861082757785799222
----------------------------------------------------------


On Wed, Oct 10, 2012 at 11:27 AM, Antonio Sun <antoniosun at lavabit.com> wrote:
> Thanks a lot Shaun.
>
> That sure will pave my way to the right direction.
> I'll start playing.
>
> Thanks everyone!
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 10, 2012 at 10:27 AM, Shaun Fryer <sfryer at sourcery.ca> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Antonio,
>>
>> That makes sense. Unfortunately it's a little beyond the scope of a
>> simple email to provide a complete solution for your situation.
>> However, you might try something like the following.
>>
>> You'll need two things. #1. an ajax function of some kind. Given that
>> you aren't interested in learning JS, I'd recommend using a
>> cross-browser abstraction library which has an ajax method, such as
>> jQuery. #2. You'll need a popup dialogue of some kind. There are
>> plenty to choose from. For the purposes of providing an example, I've
>> [arbitrarily] chosen the facybox jQuery plugin. I have no direct
>> experience with it, but the API seems simple enough, so it should work
>> fine.
>>
>> Add a script tag including the jQuery library, followed by one for the
>> plugin for your popup ( http://bitbonsai.com/facybox/ ). Now in a
>> separate script tag below this, add code similar to that below
>> (modified accordingly).
>>
>> var nMilliseconds = 60*1000; // frequency of server check in milliseconds
>> var checkServerStatus = function () {
>>   $.ajax({ url: "/path/to/your/log/file/script" }).done(function
>> (jqXHR, textStatus) {
>>     if (/a regexp matching text in your log
>> file/.test(jqXHR.responseText))
>>       $.facybox("The text you wish the user to see in the popup
>> dialogue.");
>>     else setTimeout( checkServerStatus, nMilliseconds );
>>   });
>> };
>> setTimeout( checkServerStatus, nMilliseconds );
>>
>> The above is just pseudo-code, but it *should* work with very little
>> modification, assuming you're using the indicated JS libraries.
>>
>> Hope this helps.
>> --
>> Shaun Fryer
>> ----------------------------------------------------------
>> perl -e 'print chr for map{$_+=22}($ARGV[0])=~/(\d\d)/g' \
>>         52959394107588899482799210587992861082757785799222
>> ----------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 10, 2012 at 9:51 AM, Antonio Sun <antoniosun at lavabit.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Hi, thanks a lot for your offer Shaun.
>> >
>> > That was actually what I thought the solution to be. Now let's forget
>> > what I
>> > said and focus on what I need to accomplish.
>> >
>> > Yes, I totally control the page content. The situation is,
>> >
>> > I am designing a web portal that can launch back-end server side
>> > processes.
>> > The problem is that the process can finish in seconds, or it might need
>> > hours to finish, depending how much work the process has. So my design
>> > is to
>> > spawn a sub process, and capture all its outputs to a log text file,
>> > then
>> > return immediately to the user, in a web notice page saying, your job is
>> > queued; here is the log url; please check manually if is finished or
>> > not.
>> >
>> > But my all my fellow coworkers said they don't want to check themselves.
>> > Instead, they want my web portal to check for them. I couldn't think of
>> > any
>> > solution from the server side to capture the end of the sub process,
>> > then
>> > informed the already submitted web notice page. Hence, I'm turning to
>> > the
>> > javascript front-end for solutions. Because I have zero knowledge of
>> > Javascript, it might not be feasible at all. But I know the best
>> > solution is
>> > that if I can have a desktop notification mechanism just like gmail
>> > does,
>> > that should solve the problem, because my sub process control task does
>> > know
>> > when the sub process ends, and write a specific ending tag to the end of
>> > the
>> > log file, which is what I was planning to watch/search for. Every page
>> > of my
>> > portal does include a standard master template (except the log text
>> > file),
>> > so if I can send a signal at the end of my sub process and capture that
>> > by
>> > the master template, then pop up a javascript window, that will do as
>> > well.
>> >
>> > Sorry for the lengthy gibberish, hope that you can figure something out
>> > from
>> > it.
>> >
>> > Thanks
>> >
>> > On Wed, Oct 10, 2012 at 3:01 AM, Shaun Fryer <sfryer at sourcery.ca> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Hi Antonio,
>> >>
>> >> I might be able to help you, but first I need to know a bit more
>> >> detail about what you're trying to do. When you say watch for certain
>> >> keywords from a webpage, what do you mean exactly? If you mean
>> >> searching through a static html document looking for a give word or
>> >> words, that's fairly trivial. However, if you can add javascript to
>> >> the page in question, then you probably control the page, and
>> >> therefore should already know it's content. So question is, why would
>> >> you need front-end code in JavaScript to do it? If you mean doing an
>> >> HTTP request from within a web-page, or even a Cross Origin request,
>> >> in order to receive info from a 3rd-party website, then things could
>> >> become considerably more complicated.
>> >>
>> >> Cheers,
>> >> --
>> >> Shaun Fryer
>> >> ----------------------------------------------------------
>> >> perl -e 'print chr for map{$_+=22}($ARGV[0])=~/(\d\d)/g' \
>> >>         52959394107588899482799210587992861082757785799222
>> >> ----------------------------------------------------------
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 5:48 PM, Antonio Sun <antoniosun at lavabit.com>
>> >> wrote:
>> >> > Hi,
>> >> >
>> >> > I know it's kind of OT, but since we have a lot of web experts here,
>> >> > let
>> >> > me
>> >> > try my luck here first.
>> >> >
>> >> > I have zero knowledge of Javascript, I'm wondering if you could give
>> >> > me
>> >> > a
>> >> > big favor to show me how to watch for certain keyword from a web page
>> >> > using
>> >> > Javascript.
>> >> >
>> >> > Basically, I have a slow updating web page, and I need a client side
>> >> > Javascript to watch for a specific keyword in that page and pop up an
>> >> > window
>> >> > if the keyword is found.
>> >> >
>> >> > As I have zero knowledge of Javascript, I hope that your answer is as
>> >> > complete as possible.
>> >> >
>> >> > Thanks a lot in advance
>> >> >
>> >> > Antonio
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > _______________________________________________
>> >> > toronto-pm mailing list
>> >> > toronto-pm at pm.org
>> >> > http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/toronto-pm
>> >> >
>> >
>> >
>
>


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