Manipulate a web-page control with VBA - vba

Question

Thanks in advance for your answers.
I have a little Excel document that is made so that the naïve user can enter web pages in an Excel sheet, hit a button, and play the videos from that page in their browser, in full screen, and automatically loop the videos without any further user interaction. It basically creates a slide show of videos.
I originally made it for YouTube and it works fine there. I'm now trying to expand it to use another site. It works as planned but needs an extra step.
Whereas YouTube was made with a Full Screen mode that I can access programatically, this website has embedded videos. (An example: https://www.sharecare.com/video/health-topics-a-z/copd/what-can-i-do-to-prevent-my-copd-from-getting-worse).
You can see in the code that I open IE in full screen mode (which it does) but that's the full web page (header, side banner etc.). I want the video from that page to be the only element, full screen.
If I physically go into the page I can select for the video to play full screen. I've tried searching for various ways to do this, but most of the posts are for something else or how to get a video to play inside Excel rather than what I'm doing.
Sub StartLooping()
Dim IEapp As Object
Dim VidAddr1, VidAddr2 As String
Dim AddrStrStart, AddrStrEnd As Long
Dim AddrFudge1, AddrFudge2 As Integer
Dim TimeStart, DurMin, DurSec, DurTot As Single
Dim LRAll, LRVid, LRMin, LRSec, LRVidB, LRMinB, LRSecB As Integer
Dim I As Integer
Application.EnableCancelKey = xlErrorHandler
On Error GoTo ErrorHandle
'Review Sheet
LRVid = Cells(Rows.Count, "D").End(xlUp).Row
LRMin = Cells(Rows.Count, "E").End(xlUp).Row
LRSec = Cells(Rows.Count, "F").End(xlUp).Row
LRVidB = Cells(Rows.Count, "I").End(xlUp).Row
LRMinB = Cells(Rows.Count, "J").End(xlUp).Row
LRSecB = Cells(Rows.Count, "K").End(xlUp).Row
LRAll = Cells(Rows.Count, "S").End(xlUp).Row
If LRVid <> LRMin Then
MsgBox "You have to include video address and how long (the minutes and the seconds - use 0 if needed)"
Exit Sub
End If
If LRVid <> LRSec Then
MsgBox "You have to include video address and how long (the minutes and the seconds - use 0 if needed)"
Exit Sub
End If
If LRVidB <> LRMinB Then
MsgBox "You have to include video address and how long (the minutes and the seconds - use 0 if needed)"
Exit Sub
End If
If LRVidB <> LRSecB Then
MsgBox "You have to include video address and how long (the minutes and the seconds - use 0 if needed)"
Exit Sub
End If
'Start of For-Next Loop
For I = 20 To LRAll
'Set Addr
'VidAddr1
If Len(Range("S" & I).Text) = 0 Then
Exit Sub
Else
VidAddr1 = Range("S" & I).Text
End If
VidAddr2 = VidAddr1
'Set Timer
TimeStart = Timer 'Start time
DurMin = Range("T" & I).Value
DurSec = Range("U" & I).Value
DurTot = (DurMin * 60) + DurSec
'Open the web page
Set IEapp = CreateObject("Internetexplorer.Application") 'Set IEapp = InternetExplorer
With IEapp
.Silent = True 'No Pop-ups
.Visible = True
.FullScreen = True
.Navigate VidAddr2 'Load web page
'Keep it open for the duration
Do While Timer < (TimeStart + DurTot)
'Check for Esc - refers to a public function
If KeyDown(vbKeyEscape) Then
IEapp.Quit
Set IEapp = Nothing
Exit Sub
End If
Loop
'Close the page
IEapp.Quit
Set IEapp = Nothing
End With
If I = LRAll Then I = 19
Next I
ErrorHandle:
MsgBox Err.Number & " " & Err.Description
Exit Sub
End Sub
I copied the code. It works fine. It's just that extra bit of "Oh, I did that, here's how to go about it" that I need.
The browser used is IE so I can keep it simple, but if this were possible in another common browser that would be good to know.
Here's the second set that I tried today (9/12)
Dim IEapp As Object
Dim IEAppColl As HTMLButtonElement
'Open doc
Set IEapp = CreateObject("Internetexplorer.Application") 'Set IEapp = InternetExplorer
With IEapp
.Silent = True 'No Pop-ups
.Visible = True
'.FullScreen = True
.navigate "https://www.sharecare.com/video/health-topics-a-z/copd/got-copd-ask-your-doctor-about-vitamin-d"
Do While .readyState < 4 Or .Busy
Loop
Set IEAppColl = IEapp.Document.getElementsByTagName("BUTTON")
If IEAppColl.Name = "Fullscreen" Then
IEAppColl.Click
End If
End With

Answer 1

For the example COPD page given this works with Selenium basic. You install from here and then go VBE > Tools > References > and add a reference to Selenium Type Library. You can also use an IEDriver to work with InternetExplorer rather than Chrome (which uses ChromeDriver).
Option Explicit
Public Sub PlayFullScreen()
Dim d As WebDriver, t As Date, ele As Object
Const MAX_WAIT_SEC As Long = 10
Set d = New ChromeDriver
Const URL = "https://www.sharecare.com/video/health-topics-a-z/copd/what-can-i-do-to-prevent-my-copd-from-getting-worse"
With d
.Start "Chrome"
.get URL
Do
DoEvents
On Error Resume Next
Set ele = .FindElementByCss("[title='Accept Cookies']")
If Timer - t > MAX_WAIT_SEC Then Exit Do
On Error GoTo 0
Loop While ele Is Nothing
Application.Wait Now + TimeSerial(0, 0, 1)
If Not ele Is Nothing Then ele.Click
.FindElementByCss("#myExperience").Click
Application.Wait Now + TimeSerial(0, 0, 1)
.FindElementByCss("[Title=Fullscreen]", timeout:=7000).Click
Stop '<==Delete me later
.Quit
End With
End Sub

Answer 2

My suggestion is to, instead of using a browser to play video, use a video player.
Under "More Controls" you should have a "Windows Media Player", and likely others, depending on what you have installed.
For example, I've used the VLC control on Access forms. When you install VLC it automatically adds the control to Office (so I assume Office has to be installed first.)
Here's a tutorial I found online:
Link: How to Play Video on Access Form
Random Tip Time:
It can be tricky to Google about a website because, for example, using the search term *YouTube* in a Google search results in a list of YouTube content (videos).
Exclude results from a specific site with Google's site: and - operators like:
"microsoft access" form play youtube video -site:youtube.com
...which is how I found the tutorial above, and several others.
Using the search term access can also be tricky to search for since it's such a common word, which is why I'll often enclose it in quotes like "MS Access" or "Microsoft Access" (like above), which makes Google search for those words in that order.
(More Google tips)