Capture data from Screen, Copy to Form

[NK]

Hi,
We have a webpage that has a form available on the intranet.
A user will have a window open that runs a different application open.

When the user accesses the webpage and clicks a button we should
capture the data from the application window and populate the form.

Is it possible to access text inside another opened window on the client
pc, using javascript?

Any ideas on how to do this?

Thanks

[RobG]

NK wrote:

Hi,
We have a webpage that has a form available on the intranet.
A user will have a window open that runs a different application open.

When the user accesses the webpage and clicks a button we should
capture the data from the application window and populate the form.
You want to capture information from another application
from a web page? You work for Microsoft? :-)

Is it possible to access text inside another opened window on the client
pc, using javascript?

*Absolutely not*, and anyone that made a browser that could
do it would be hung, drawn and quartered and then killed in
a really nasty fashion (assuming you mean a window opened by
another application as per above).
Any ideas on how to do this?

Get the user to copy & paste from the other application.
You could automatically copy from the other app to the
clipboard maybe, then the user just has to click in a text
box or area in your page and pres Ctrl+V or select edit ->
paste.

Cheers, Rob.

[mark4asp]

On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 01:38:39 GMT, RobG <rg***@iinet.net.auau> wrote:

NK wrote:

Hi,
We have a webpage that has a form available on the intranet.
A user will have a window open that runs a different application open.

When the user accesses the webpage and clicks a button we should
capture the data from the application window and populate the form.

You want to capture information from another application
from a web page? You work for Microsoft? :-)

Is it possible to access text inside another opened window on the client
pc, using javascript?

*Absolutely not*, and anyone that made a browser that could
do it would be hung, drawn and quartered and then killed in
a really nasty fashion (assuming you mean a window opened by
another application as per above).

Can he use a browser plugin to do this (to copy the data from the user
application? Otherwise could the data be exported to a structured form
(XML?) and then be copied in?

ie. Can one copy data from a XML file into javascript? Surely.

[NK]

> You want to capture information from another application

from a web page? You work for Microsoft? :-) Nope :)
The web page is hosted on the intranet, and the other app is a
mainframe green terminal.
*Absolutely not*, and anyone that made a browser that could
do it would be hung, drawn and quartered and then killed in
a really nasty fashion (assuming you mean a window opened by
another application as per above).

I guess I have to look at VBScript and activeX for doing that

Thanks

[Fred Oz]

NK wrote:

The web page is hosted on the intranet, and the other app is a
mainframe green terminal.
[snip] I guess I have to look at VBScript and activeX for doing that

Not sure that will help you either. If it's running in a terminal, you
may be able to screen-scrape, but if anyone changes anything in the
screen layout you are in trouble. In any case, I don't think ActiveX
will help. More likely you'll be back to C or FORTRAN.

This stuff was pretty standard fare 10 years ago... look for a
pony-tailed 50 something, you may be surprised at what they dredge up
from the past.

[Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn]

NK wrote:

I guess I have to look at VBScript and activeX for doing that

ActiveX perhaps; VBScript -- not necessarily. What many don't
understand is that ActiveX is the technology providing an object
model and VBScript is but one possible interface language to it.
JScript can do exactly the same.
PointedEars