how to retrieve text from website text boxes - delphi

Question

how can i retrieve text from a web sites text boxes in delphi for example suppose i type
''tiger'' in google's search box how do i retrieve text from that search box would wm_gettext or getwindowtext work?
i am using delphi 7

Answer 1

try this code.
Only works with internet explorer. tested in Windows Vista,IE8 y Delphi 2007.
Uses
SHDocVw,
mshtml;
procedure GetTextFromEditIExplorer(ListStr: TStringList);
var
ShellWindow : IShellWindows;
Web_Browser : IWebbrowser2;
reg_Shell_window : IDispatch;
Dummy : IHTMLDocument2;
ovElements : OleVariant;
Document : Variant;
WindowsCount : Integer;
ElementsCount : Integer;
FormsCount : Integer;
begin
ShellWindow := CoShellWindows.Create; //Provides access to the collection of open Shell windows
for WindowsCount := 0 to ShellWindow.Count do //iterate through number of windows in the Shell windows collection
begin
reg_Shell_window := ShellWindow.Item(WindowsCount); //Returns the registered Shell window for a specified index.
if reg_Shell_window = nil then Continue; //go to next reg window
reg_Shell_window.QueryInterface(iWebBrowser2, Web_Browser); // determines if an interface can be used with an object
if Web_Browser <> nil then
begin
Web_Browser.Document.QueryInterface(IHTMLDocument2, Dummy);
if Dummy <> nil then
begin
Web_Browser := ShellWindow.Item(WindowsCount) as IWebbrowser2;
Document := Web_Browser;
for FormsCount := 0 to Document.forms.Length - 1 do
begin
ovElements := Document.forms.Item(FormsCount).elements;
for ElementsCount := 0 to ovElements.Length - 1 do
begin
try
if (CompareText(ovElements.item(ElementsCount).tagName, 'INPUT') = 0) and (CompareText(ovElements.item(ElementsCount).type, 'text') = 0) then
ListStr.Add('Control Name ['+ovElements.item(ElementsCount).Name+']'+' Type -> '+ovElements.item(ElementsCount).Type+' -> Value ['+ovElements.item(ElementsCount).Value+']');
except
ListStr.Add('Error Reading element n° '+IntToStr(ElementsCount));
end;
end;
end;
end;
end;
end;
end;
procedure TForm1.btn1Click(Sender: TObject);
var
List : TStringList;
begin
List:=TStringList.Create;
GetTextFromEditIExplorer(List);
ShowMessage(List.Text);
end;
Edit :
Omar unfortunately there is no simple solution to your problem. This is because each browser uses a different interface to interact with the information.
Here are a couple of suggestions
Firefox uses XPCOM, you can research about that.
Try using DDE (dynamic data exchange).
You can use WatiN, is a .net library wich work with firefox and iexplorer. you can see this article to learn how interact with a .net Assembly in delphi win32.
Bye.

Answer 2

The simplest way would be by using a regular expression on the original HTML code from the page.