Submitting a form using a headless browser in NodeJS

Other Questions Headless Browser
1

I am dealing with an outdated tech stack where the HTML response is generated upon form submission. The required information is injected via a portlet on the client’s domain, and when I try to view the content locally, it doesn’t appear as it should. This situation prevents me from directly posting data to the form endpoint. Therefore, I need to find a way to submit the form and extract the success or failure page using a headless browser. My intention is to create an API endpoint in my NodeJS application that sends form data, submits the form through the headless browser, and returns the scraped results. Are there any frameworks that could assist me with this approach? I’ve considered using Nightwatch and WebDriver, but they seem focused on automated testing rather than my use case.

2

Another alternative you might consider for handling form submission through a headless browser in Node.js is Nightmare. Nightmare is designed for high-level browser automation, and though it is not as popular as Puppeteer, it can be simpler for some tasks due to its straightforward approach.

Here's a basic guide to using Nightmare for submitting a form:

npm install nightmare
const Nightmare = require('nightmare');

async function submitForm() {
  const nightmare = Nightmare({ show: false });
  try {
    const pageContent = await nightmare
      .goto('http://your-client-domain.com/form-page')
      .type('input[name="your_input_name"]', 'Some data')
      .click('button[type="submit"]')
      .wait('#success_or_error_div')
      .evaluate(() => document.body.innerHTML)
      .end();
    return pageContent;
  } catch (e) {
    console.error(e);
  }
}

In this example, Nightmare can effectively handle navigation, form input, and page evaluation. Make sure to catch errors properly for handling exceptions in real-world applications. You can invoke the submitForm function within your API endpoint to return the form submission results.

Nightmare provides a great mix of simplicity and browser automation capabilities, allowing you to easily manage complex form submissions and extract page contents efficiently without extensive setup.

3

If you're looking to submit a form using a headless browser in Node.js but wish to explore another approach that complements the performance of Puppeteer, consider using Taiko. Taiko provides an elegant API for browser automation and is built by the Gauge team specifically for this purpose.

Below is a quick setup to submit a form and capture results:

npm install taiko
const { openBrowser, goto, write, click, closeBrowser, text } = require('taiko');

async function submitForm() {
  try {
    await openBrowser({ headless: true });
    await goto('http://your-client-domain.com/form-page');
    await write('Some data', into(inputField({ name: 'your_input_name' })));
    await click('Submit');
    let result = await text('Your success or error message').exists();
    return result;
  } finally {
    await closeBrowser();
  }
}

In your Node.js API endpoint, you would invoke the submitForm function to perform form submissions efficiently. Taiko uses a concise syntax and integrates smoothly within a Node.js application, suitable for automation beyond traditional testing frameworks.