Web browser automation with Playwright

Playwright can be used to automate pages in web browser (click links, fill web forms, extract data, etc). It has more features than elm (see Web automation). For example can wait for web page loaded, extract text, execute JavaScript. It has a recorder.

Works with Chrome, Edge and other Chromium-based browsers. Partially Firefox. Does not work on Windows 7/8.

Install NuGet package Microsoft.Playwright.

Download Playwrighter.zip and import in LibreAutomate. Not necessary, but with it you'll use Playwright in a more convenient way. The examples below use helper classes from the imported files. The imported files contain more examples and info.

This script connects to an existing web browser instance, finds a page by URL, activates the tab, and clicks a link. To enable connections, the browser must be started with certain command line. Next script shows how. Also, for this example, the browser must contain a tab with the main page of the LA forum.

/*/ c Playwrighter.cs; /*/
using Microsoft.Playwright;

using var play = Playwrighter.Connect(out var page, "https://www.libreautomate.com/forum/*");
await page.GetByText("Shared C# code").ClickAsync();
print.it(page.Url);

This script launches a web browser so that Playwrighter.Connect can work with it.

/*/ c Playwrighter.cs; /*/

PlaywrightRunBrowser.Chrome();
//PlaywrightRunBrowser.Chrome("--profile-directory=\"Profile 1\"");
//PlaywrightRunBrowser.Edge();
//PlaywrightRunBrowser.Edge(port: 9224);

This script connects to an existing web browser instance, creates new tab, opens page, and clicks a link. To enable connections, the browser must be started with certain command line. Previous script shows how.

/*/ c Playwrighter.cs; /*/
using Microsoft.Playwright;

using var play = Playwrighter.Connect(out var page);
await page.GotoAsync("https://www.libreautomate.com/");
await page.GetByRole(AriaRole.Link, new() { Name = "Cookbook" }).ClickAsync();

This script launches a web browser, opens a page, and clicks a link.

/*/ c Playwrighter.cs; /*/
using Microsoft.Playwright;

using var play = Playwrighter.Launch(out var page); //default browser
//using var play = Playwrighter.Launch(out var page, PWBrowser.BundledChrome); //bundled browser (installs if need)
await page.GotoAsync("https://www.libreautomate.com/forum/");
await page.GetByText("Shared C# code").ClickAsync();

dialog.show("Close the browser");

This script launches a web browser and opens a page. Saves browser session data like cookies and local storage. Next time uses the saved data.

/*/ c Playwrighter.cs; /*/
using Microsoft.Playwright;

var userDataDir = @"C:\Test\Playwright\UserData"; //edit this
//var userDataDir = folders.LocalAppData + @"Google\Chrome\User Data"; //your Chrome user data. Fails if Chrome is already running and using this directory.

using var play = Playwrighter.LaunchPersistentContext(out var page, userDataDir);
//using var play = Playwrighter.LaunchPersistentContext(out var page, userDataDir, options: new() { IgnoreDefaultArgs = ["--disable-extensions"] }); //with Chrome extensions

await page.GotoAsync("https://www.google.com/");

dialog.show("Close browser");

This script launches Chrome with Playwright Inspector and starts recording. With --channel chrome it uses your normal Chrome. Without - bundled. You can change or remove the URL.

_Run(@"codegen --channel chrome https://www.libreautomate.com/forum/");

//console: 0 hidden, 1 normal, 2 don't close
void _Run(string command, int console = 0) {
	var ps1 = folders.Workspace + @".nuget\playwright\playwright.ps1";
	run.it("pwsh.exe", $"-NoLogo {(console == 2 ? "-NoExit" : "")} {(console == 0 ? "-w Hidden" : "")} \"{ps1}\" {command}");
}