Selecting/actioning items in Kendo UI widgets using Excel VBA

Question

Stuck - Need help !

I\'m trying to automate actioning items in an IE web page on our internal company site. I\'m able to fill out any kind of text object

Answer 1

This is how to select the first row of the kendoGrid:

ie.Document.parentWindow.execScript "$('#drgdLease').data('kendoGrid').select('tr:eq(0)');"

Below is a demo showing the equivalent code working on the official Kendo UI Grid Widget Demo page.

Note the work-around for the possible race condition. While it may be that this particular race condition also applies in your case, there is another race condition that you need to be aware of.

It's possible that, after having initiated the search for the lease number, and before the kendoGrid has finished updating, your code might attempt to select the first row. This would result in the first row of the default displayed data/previous search data being selected, and then the grid being updated, causing the selection to disappear.

The work-around employed in the code below will not work in this case, as it will always (incorrectly) detect a selected row. A different workaround is needed. (I can think of a few - the most suitable probably depending on your exact use case.)

'============================================================================================
' Module     : <in any standard module>
' Version    : 0.1
' Part       : 1 of 1
' References : Microsoft Internet Controls   [SHDocVw]
' Source     : https://stackoverflow.com/a/46483783/1961728
'============================================================================================
  ' Required if late binding SHDocVw
  Private Enum tagREADYSTATE
    READYSTATE_UNINITIALIZED = 0
    READYSTATE_LOADING
    READYSTATE_LOADED
    READYSTATE_INTERACTIVE
    READYSTATE_COMPLETE
  End Enum

Public Sub AutomateKendoUI()

  ' Create and use a new instance of IE
  With New SHDocVw.InternetExplorer '##Late Binding: CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application")
    .Visible = True ' False is default

    .Navigate "http://demos.telerik.com/kendo-ui/grid/index"
    Do Until .Busy = False And .ReadyState = SHDocVw.tagREADYSTATE.READYSTATE_COMPLETE: DoEvents: Loop '##Late Binding: = tagREADYSTATE.READYSTATE_COMPLETE  ##No Enums: = 4

    ' Get and use the main DOM
    With .Document
      ' Race Condition Work-Around
      '   Kendo UI may not have finished loading the Grid data before we invoke its select method.
      '   Therefore, we continue to invoke the method until a selected row is detected.
      Do
        .parentWindow.execScript "$('#grid').data('kendoGrid').select('tr:eq(0)');"
        On Error Resume Next
          Dim elm_tr As MSHTML.HTMLTableRow: Set elm_tr = .querySelector("#grid tr.k-state-selected")
        On Error GoTo 0
      Loop While elm_tr Is Nothing

    End With
  End With
End Sub

---

Sources:

From the official Kendo UI API documentation for the select method¹:

Example - select the first and second table rows
...

var grid = $("#grid").data("kendoGrid");
grid.select("tr:eq(1), tr:eq(2)");

Note that this is actually wrong. The first row is at index 0, not index 1. A string parameter for the select method is treated as a jQuery selector, and from the official jQuery API documentation for the :eq() selector²:

eq selector

Description: *Select the element at index n within the matched set.*

jQuery(":eq(index)")

index: Zero-based index of the element to match.

Interestingly, the official Kendo UI API documentation for the tbody object gets it right though³:

Example - get the first table row
...

var grid = $("#grid").data("kendoGrid");
var row = grid.tbody.find("tr:eq(0)");

---

^{_{1 http://docs.telerik.com/kendo-ui/api/javascript/ui/grid#methods-select
2 https://api.jquery.com/eq-selector/
3 http://docs.telerik.com/kendo-ui/api/javascript/ui/grid#fields-tbody}}

Answer 2

Here is my attempt. I tried to explain as much as possible in the comments. Let me know how it's going, based on the HTML posted, it seems like this should work, but please let us know :)

I'm assuming you already have an IE window open and need to get a pointer to that window. Update the "myWebSiteURL" in the getIEPointer function to be the URL of the site you are trying to access. Less is more in this case as I'm doing a wildcard match. E.g. looking for 'goo' would match a url of 'Good' and 'Google'.

Option Explicit

Public Sub getElements()
    Dim ie As Object

    'I'm assuming you already have it open in IE, if not, then load the page
    Set ie = getIEPointer("myWebSiteURL")

    'Exit if the window couldn't be located
    If ie Is Nothing Then
        Debug.Print "No Window Found!"
        Exit Sub
    End If

    Dim element As Object

    'get the Div element which contains all the elements we are interested in
    'If this doesn't work, make sure your pages doesn't contain FRAMES
    'Here's a page about Frames
    'https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16699267/vba-ie-automation-read-iframe
    Set element = ie.Document.getElementById("drgdLease")

    'Select the first instance of the tbody element in the drgdLease div
    Set element = element.getElementsByTagName("tbody")(0)

    'Select the first instance of the td, inside the TBody
    Set element = element.getElementsByTagName("td")(0)

    'Interact with the element
    element.Click
    element.Value = "12345"

End Sub

'This function will return an IE object, I'm assuming the page is already open
Private Function getIEPointer(ByRef UrlPart As String) As Object
    Dim window As Object

    For Each window In CreateObject("Shell.Application").Windows()
        If window.LocationURL Like "*" & UrlPart & "*" Then
            Set getIEPointer = window
            Exit Function
        End If
    Next

    Set getIEPointer = Nothing
End Function

Answer 3

here is a shot in the dark .... lol

this may be a similar page

single step the code

Option Explicit

Sub extractKendo()

'    Dim IE As Object
'    Set IE = CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application")

    Dim ie As InternetExplorer
    Set ie = New InternetExplorer

    ie.Visible = True

    ie.navigate "http://demos.telerik.com/kendo-ui/grid/index"

    While ie.readyState <> 4 Or ie.Busy
        DoEvents
    Wend

    Dim doc As HTMLDocument
    Set doc = ie.Document

    Dim elm As IHTMLElementCollection

    Set elm = doc.getElementsByClassName("k-link k-pager-nav")
    elm(0).Click
    elm(4).Click
    elm(0).Click
    elm(3).Click
    elm(3).Click
    elm(3).Click
    elm(0).Click

    Set elm = doc.getElementsByClassName("k-list-scroller")
    Set elm = elm(1).getElementsByTagName("li")

    elm(0).Click
    elm(1).Click
    elm(2).Click
    elm(3).Click

    ie.Quit

    Set ie = Nothing

End Sub