Description
This activity has quite a simple purpose: it opens a new web browser window and then automatically navigates to the specified page. Steps necessary to define this page will be described below in the ‘Parameters’ section.
This activity is necessary for interacting with browsers by using other more advanced activities.
Choosing a browser to use
Before using this activity, you might want to choose the browser that will be opened by using it. There are two ways to do it:
Go to the ‘Settings’ tab and then click ‘Interaction with browser’.
Studio Pro Settings tab
In the activity properties section, click the ‘Change’ button. The same menu will be opened.
This button also opens the 'Interaction with browser' menu
This is what you will see:
Web browser settings menu
This menu has the following options:
- Browser to use. It defines the browser that will be used with this activity. Currently Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Internet Explorer are supported.
- Load user profile with cookies, extensions etc. This option indicates whether the data associated with the profile will be loaded.
- Don’t close the browser after execution of a bot. If it is checked, the browser window will not be closed after the execution process is finished.
- Command line arguments.
Parameters
Now let us have a look at the parameters of this activity. In this case they define the page to open, browser to use and the browser tab.
URL parameter defines the page to open. This is a required parameter.
Set a value option lets you input the page address manually. In most cases this is the most practical way.
Calculate a value enables you to use available JS methods to form a URL. It is useful when it is required to form a URL dynamically
Save the previous step result picks the previous activity result and defines it as a URL here.
The next parameter is Browser to use. This is a required parameter. We have already described its details above.
Browser tab parameter defines the serial number of the tab in which the required page will be opened. That being said, tab number will be 'remembered' here. For example, if you have set the tab number to 1 and then moved this tab to the second position in the browser, it will be Tab 1 anyway. Basically, it does not refer to the actual tabs order. Currently up to five tabs are supported.
On tab. This parameter allows you to specify the name of the tab that you want the bot to interact with. The name of the tab is assigned in the "Open URL" activity.
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Set a value allows you to manually specify the name of the tab.
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Calculate a value allows you to use a special formula or a special method to determine the name of the tab.
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Save the previous step result takes the result of the previous workflow action as the name of the tab.
Use tab name in order
This checkbox allows you to specify a sequential number of a tab in the browser. It is worth using if a new tab opens not manually, but automatically after clicking on some element.
Wait before, sec and Wait after, sec parameters simply indicate how much time will pass before or after executing this activity.