Announcement: Selenium Nodes 4 released

Community Extensions Palladian & Selenium
#1

Selenium Nodes 4.0 is available

If you’re installing into a fresh KNIME 4.0, please get the update site URL here.

This release provides no new features, rather it ensures compatibility to KNIME 4.0, and thus involves a breaking change. Due to changes in KNIME 4.0 we had to remove the jBrowser plugin – we feel that this is not a big thing, as (1) it was always an optional installation and thus not widely used anyways, and (2) there are now other (better) options for running a headless, bundled browser (e.g. Chrome, Chromium, or Firefox).

Beside that, we removed the “Execute Selenium script” node – the related “Selenium Builder” project for creating the JSON scripts is not maintained since a long while, and the node caused confusions, as there are other, incompatible Selenium JSON script formats which could not be processed by this node anyways.

For more information, please check the change log.

Let us know if you have feedback, comments, or issues!

– Philipp

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Palladian nodes gone after update to knime 4.0
#2

In case you’re updating an existing KNIME installation where the jBrowserDriver has been installed, you need to uninstall jBrowserDriver before, else wise you’ll see a “Cannot complete the install because of a conflicting dependency”.

For that, go to About KNIME → Installation Details → Installed Software and there uninstall “Selenium Nodes for KNIME: jBrowserDriver” by selecting the entry and clicking “Uninstall…”

Afterwards, please run the update again.

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KNIME 4.0
Knime 4.0
#3

:robot: What You See Is What You Select

Selenium Nodes 4.1 is now available as a free update for all current users. Here’s a quick overview with the new highlights:

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selenium_visual_element_selection-3.mov.gif796×606 1.83 MB

Visual Element Selection

The Find Elements node now has a Select button which allows you to grab page elements more easily than before. Say “goodbye” to writing queries by hand or copying selectors from your browser. Instead, simply point at the desired element in the browser window, click on it , and a matching CSS selector will be created for you. This feature works in all Chrome-based browsers (Chrome, Chromium and Opera).

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selenium_visual_selector_preview.mov.gif772×600 745 KB

Live Selector Preview

The Find Elements node will show you all matched elements for a given query in realtime — both in the browser window and in the DOM outline. Modify your query and you will immediately see whether you hit the desired elements. This feature is available for all Chrome-based browsers — as stated above.

What Else?

Chris Terrell from EverydayVBA made a three minute video which showcases the new functionality. Watch here and also check out his other videos!

There are several more changes, e.g. a new Reset on Load node. Please check our changelog for all the details.

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#4

And there’s a 4.1.1 fix now which resolves an issue when using the new selection tools with the “Start Pooled WebDriver” node.

Happy weekend.

#5

Update 4.2 adds a new predefined snippet to disable SSL-related errors (see here). Beside that, we’ve updated the bundled Chromium browser to version 80.0.3987.117.

#6

We released Selenium Nodes 4.3.1 a few days ago. Notable changes include:

  • A brand-new Create PDF node which allows you to write PDF files using Chromium-based headless browsers. How does it work for you? We’re looking forward to your feedback!
  • Start WebDriver: Input port for the factory is now optional – you can configure the WebDriver directly within the node configuration, the WebDriver Factory is no longer needed.
  • Several new Capability snippets for the Firefox browser (kudos @armingrudd)
  • Updated driver binaries and bundled Chromium
  • Reset on Load: Fix when used in metanode or wrapped metanode or component or however these things are called now (thanks to @Rich_ard)

– Philipp

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#7

What snippets were added?

#8

Hi Philipp

The pdf creator works very well. Features It is great to scan a web page with all its links and texts (not in the form of an image or image format) and save it as pdf.

also the web driver features have been improved operationally :+1: :knime: :+1:

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#9

Please check the change log for details:

#10

Since a few minutes, there’s Selenium Nodes 4.4 on the update site. The changes:

  • Navigate: Add “Flow Variable” to URL input.
  • Send Keys: Add “Flow Variable” to text input.
  • Wait: Add “Flow Variable” to time input.
  • Find Elements: Add “Flow Variable” to query and result column input.
  • Take Full Page Screenshot: New node for taking “full page” screenhots (i.e. longer than the visible window bounds) using Chrome. Currently labeled as “beta” — your feedback is welcome!
  • Update driver binaries (ChromeDriver 81.0.4044.138, OperaChromiumDriver 81.0.4044.113)

Check the change log for the full chronology.

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#11

Congratulations Philipp; There have been much more powerful features with the latest updates.
:trophy: :knime:

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#12

Selenium Nodes 4.5 is available. The changes since 4.4:

version-4.5 (2020-08-02)

  • Table Extractor: Allow to skip empty rows (kudos @armingrudd)
  • Update driver binaries (OperaChromiumDriver 84.0.4147.89)
  • Table Extractor: Fixed handling of empty <tr></tr> rows (kudos @armingrudd)

version-4.4.3 (2020-07-25)

  • Update driver binaries (ChromeDriver 84.0.4147.30)
  • Properly propagate proxy settings for Chrome (thanks to @dasturiol)
  • Typing for proxy port settings in Firefox template must be Long instead of String (thanks to @dasturiol)

version-4.4.2 (2020-07-15)

  • Update driver binaries (ChromeDriver 83.0.4103.39, OperaChromiumDriver 83.0.4103.97)

version-4.4.1 (2020-05-20)

  • Navigate: Prevent validation errors when using Flow Variable input
  • Send Keys: Prevent validation errors when using Flow Variable input
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