Loop over a set of pages with Selenium Basic (VBA) - vba

Question

Task:
So my first foray into Selenium and I am attempting to:
Find the number of pages in a pagination set listed at the bottom of https://codingislove.com/ This is purely to support task 2 by determining the loop end.
Loop over them
I believe these are linked but for those that want a single issue. I simply want to find the correct collection and loop over it to load each page.
The number of pages is, at time of writing, 6 as seen at the bottom of the webpage and shown below:
As an MCVE I simply want to find the number of pages and click my way through them. Using Selenium Basic.
What I have tried:
I have read through a number of online resources, I have listed but a few in references.
Task 1)
It seems that I should be able to find the count of pages using the Size property. But I can't seem to find the right object to use this with. I have made a number of attempts; a few shown below:
bot.FindElementsByXPath("//*[#id=""main""]/nav/div/a[3]").Size '<==this I think is too specific
bot.FindElementsByClass("page-numbers").Size
But these yield the run-time error 438:
"Object does not support this property or method"
And the following doesn't seem to expose the required methods:
bot.FindElementByCss(".navigation.pagination")
I have fudged with
bot.FindElementsByClass("page-numbers").Count + 1
But would like something more robust
Task 2)
I know that I can navigate to the next page, from page 1, with:
bot.FindElementByXPath("//*[#id=""main""]/nav/div/a[3]").Click
But I can't use this in a loop presumably because the XPath needs to be updated.
If not updated it leads to a runtime error 13.
As the re-directs follow a general pattern of
href="https://codingislove.com/page/pageNumber/"
I can again fudge my way through by constructing each URL in the loop with
bot.Get "https://codingislove.com/page/" & i & "/"
But I would like something more robust.
Question:
How do I loop over the pagination set in a robust fashion using selenium? Sure I am having a dense day and that there should be an easy to target appropriate collection to loop over.
Code - My current attempt
Option Explicit
Public Sub scrapeCIL()
Dim bot As New WebDriver, i As Long, pageCount As Long
bot.Start "chrome", "https://codingislove.com"
bot.Get "/"
pageCount = bot.FindElementsByClass("page-numbers").Count + 1 '
For i = 1 To pageCount 'technically can loop from 2 I know!
' bot.FindElementByXPath("//*[#id=""main""]/nav/div/a[3]").Click 'runtime error 13
' bot.FindElementByXPath("//*[#id=""main""]/nav/div/a[2]/span").Click ''runtime error 13
bot.Get "https://codingislove.com/page/" & i & "/"
Next i
Stop
bot.Quit
End Sub
Note:
Any supported browser will do. It doesn't have to be Chrome.
References:
Finding the number of pagination buttons in Selenium WebDriver
http://seleniumhome.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/how-can-we-automate-pagination-using.html
Requirements:
Selenium Basic
ChromeDriver 2.37 'Or use IE but zoom must be at 100%
VBE Tools > references > Selenium type library

Answer 1

To click the element, it must be visible in the screen, so you need to scroll to the bottom of the page first (selenium might do this implicitly some times, but I don't find it reliable).
Try this:
Option Explicit
Public Sub scrapeCIL()
Dim bot As New WebDriver, btn As Object, i As Long, pageCount As Long
bot.Start "chrome", "https://codingislove.com"
bot.Get "/"
pageCount = bot.FindElementsByClass("page-numbers").Count
For i = 1 To pageCount
bot.ExecuteScript ("window.scrollTo(0,document.body.scrollHeight);")
Application.wait Now + TimeValue("00:00:02")
On Error Resume Next
Set btn = bot.FindElementByCss("a[class='next page-numbers']")
If btn.IsPresent = True Then
btn.Click
End If
On Error GoTo 0
Next i
bot.Quit
End Sub

Answer 2

Similar principle:
Option Explicit
Public Sub GetItems()
Dim i As Long
With New ChromeDriver
.Get "https://codingislove.com/"
For i = 1 To 6
.FindElementByXPath("//*[#id=""main""]/nav/div/a[3]").SendKeys ("Keys.PageDown")
Application.Wait Now + TimeValue("00:00:02")
On Error Resume Next
.FindElementByCss("a.next").Click
On Error GoTo 0
Next i
End With
End Sub
Reference:
'http://seleniumhome.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/how-to-press-keyboard-in-selenium.html

Answer 3

If you're only interested in clicking through each of the pages (and getting the number of pages is just an aid to doing this) then you should be able to click this element until it's no longer there:
<span class="screen-reader-text">Next Page</span>
Using
bot.FindElementByXpath("//span[contains(text(), 'Next Page')]")
Have a loop click that link on each page load. Eventually it wont be there. Then use VBA's error/exception handling to handle whatever the equivalent of NoSuchElementException is in this implementation of WebDriver. You will need to re-find the element each time in the loop.

Answer 4

How about trying like this? Few days back I could figure out that there is an option .SendKeys("keys.END") which will lead you to the bottom of a page so that the driver can reach out the expected element to click. I used If Err.Number <> 0 Then Exit Do within the do loop so that if the scraper encounters any error, it will break out of loop as in, element not found error in this case when the clicking on the last page button is done.
Give this a shot:
Sub GetItems()
Dim pagenum As Object
With New ChromeDriver
.get "https://codingislove.com/"
Do
On Error Resume Next
Set pagenum = .FindElementByCss("a.next")
pagenum.SendKeys ("Keys.END")
Application.Wait Now + TimeValue("00:00:03")
pagenum.Click
If Err.Number <> 0 Then Exit Do
On Error GoTo 0
Loop
.Quit
End With
End Sub
Reference to add to the library:
Selenium Type Library