VBS: Can I target a field by its tabIndex, and its div position?

Question

Novice here, using VBS to help with data entry to a web input form. Would appreciate any advice. I regularly use lines like this to set the value of a field based on its name:

IE.Document.All.Item("field1").Value = "test"

However I have a set of very awkward fields whose names change with each record. Their physical positions stay the same (visually); their tabIndexes stay the same (1,2,3,4), so I wondered if it's possible to do something like this:

IE.Document.All.getElementByTabIndex(1).Value = "test"

...But I'm not sure it is? Furthermore, even if that did work, tabIndex1 is used for another field on the same webpage. The fields that I am interested in, however, are all located on a div. The ID of the div is "form_div". So I'm trying to target a field located on div "form_div" whose tabIndex is 1... do you think it is possible?

Big thanks in advance.

Answer 1

So you have a DIV element with tabIndex set to 1 and you don't know it Name or ID, right? Then do something like this:

Set oDivs = IE.Document.getElementsByTagName("div")
Set myDiv = Nothing
For Each od In oDivs
    If od.tabIndex = "1" Then
        Set myDiv = od
        Exit For
    End If
Next
If Not myDiv Is Nothing Then
    'do what needs here...
    MsgBox myDiv.Name
End If

P.S. Well, I see 2 drawbacks in your design.

1. The tabIndex should be unique.

2. Searching for element by name is not so perfect in IE. If your element has only Name and not ID then getElementsByName will fail. Better use ID, it's even simplify coding:

   Set myDiv = IE.Document.All.form_div
   

To find it by Name w'd be:

Set oDivs = IE.Document.getElementsByTagName("div")
Set myDiv = Nothing
For Each od In oDivs
    If od.Name = "form_div" Then
        Set myDiv = od
        Exit For
    End If
Next

And once you have the element...

If Not myDiv Is Nothing Then
    Set nodes = myDiv.childNodes
    For i = 0 To nodes.Length-1 Step 2
        If nodes(i).tabIndex = "1" Then
            'do what need here...
            nodes(i).Value = nodes(i).tabIndex
            Exit For
        End If
    Next
End If