Trying to click on the first youtube video link using VBA - vba

Question

My end goal is to dynamically get music playing. I figured that navigating to youtube, searching for the string, and playing the first video suggested is a good way of getting this done. Pandora and Spotify both have hoops that you need to jump through before playing.
Sub YouTube()
So we open up IE, and navigate to the website
Set objIE = CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application")
WebSite = "www.youtube.com"
With objIE
.Visible = True
.navigate WebSite
Do While .Busy Or .readyState <> 4
DoEvents
Loop
So far, so good. Next we find the search box, and make a search. Dummy text entered for the sake of easy coding, it'll eventually be an argument passed to the function.
Set Element = .document.getelementsbyname("search_query")
Element.Item(0).Value = "portal 2 walkthrough video"
.document.forms(1).submit
Do While .Busy Or .readyState <> 4
DoEvents
Loop
Great, we made it! Now for the part I'm struggling on - clicking on the first video.
I've tried a few different things - I can't seem to find a name, and I keep getting a "Permission denied" when I try to do something like this, as suggested by other users. See: How do I click a link on a web page using Excel VBA?
I've decided not to programatically control the mouse and click, since the location I need to click on keeps dynamically changing.
I'm not very good at interfacing with IE while using VBA, so at this point I'm stumped.
Set Element2 = .document.getelementsbytagname("a")
For Each i In Element2
If i.classname = "yt-lockup-content" Then
i.Click
Exit For
Else
'do nothing
End If
Next i
End With
End Sub
I've also tried:
.document.getelementsbyclassname("yt-lockup-content").Click
But that's not a supported method
.document.querySelector("a[href=javascript:browserPrint();]").Click
Gets a permission denied

Answer 1

The following using a loop to wait until results are present. I try to keep much of the selectors used to target elements fairly loose to allow for changes in html
Option Explicit
Public Sub test()
Dim ie As InternetExplorer
Set ie = New InternetExplorer
With ie
.Visible = True
.Navigate2 "https://www.youtube.com/"
While .Busy Or .readyState <> 4: DoEvents: Wend
.document.querySelector("[title=Search]").Value = "portal 2 walkthrough video"
.document.querySelectorAll("form").item(1).submit
While .Busy Or .readyState <> 4: DoEvents: Wend
Do
Loop While .document.querySelectorAll("#results").Length = 0
.document.querySelector("#results h3 a").Click
While .Busy Or .readyState <> 4: DoEvents: Wend
Stop '<Delete me later
End With
End Sub

Answer 2

Another method is to use the querySelector() method. You know you want the element with the tag a, because the a tag means that it contains a link.
Then combine the above with the class name that you're looking for, yt-lockup-title, and you get this single line:
.querySelector("h3.yt-lockup-title").Click
Take note that this is a method of the document object. So objIE.Document.querySelector()
Don't want to use the .Click method? You can also grab the url from the href attribute and just perform a navigation:
Dim vidURL As String
vidURL = objIE.document.querySelector("h3.yt-lockup-title > a").getAttribute("href")
objIE.navigate "https://www.youtube.com" & vidURL
However, in the method you attempted with using
.document.getelementsbyclassname("yt-lockup-content").Click
the getElementsByClassName() function returns a collection of elements. Because of this, you would need to append the index number of the element you are wanting, which would very likely be the first element (since you want the first video).
One of the two lines would be what you're looking for:
.document.getelementsbyclassname("yt-lockup-content")(0).Click
' - OR -
.document.getelementsbyclassname("yt-lockup-content").Item(0).Click
They both do and mean the same thing.

Answer 3

I have changed a element to span element and it worked. Code below:
Sub YouTube()
Set objIE = CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application")
WebSite = "www.youtube.com"
With objIE
.Visible = True
.navigate WebSite
Do While .Busy Or .ReadyState <> 4
DoEvents
Loop
Set Element = .document.getelementsbyname("search_query")
Element.Item(0).Value = "portal 2 walkthrough video"
.document.forms(1).submit
Do While .Busy Or .ReadyState <> 4
DoEvents
Loop
Set Element2 = .document.getelementsbytagname("span")
For Each i In Element2
Do While .Busy Or .ReadyState <> 4
DoEvents
Loop
If i.classname = "yt-thumb-simple" Then
i.Click
Exit For
Else
'do nothing
End If
Next i
End With
End Sub