iMacros

Jan 15, 2008 16:34 GMT  ·  By

The automation of web browsing actions is possible in various ways and at different levels. For example, cookies which are harmless text files can remember the login details for a given website or a certain page that you have accessed frequently. But this way you get only a partial level of automation of your browsing actions.

The total automation of your tasks while you are present on the Internet can be achieved in a very simple manner with the help of iMacros browser plugin. iMacros is a free browser plugin available both for Firefox and Internet Explorer. It provides a lot of features regarding the automation of various web crawling actions. The iMacros tool can help you especially when you need to repeat a certain task.

It can record all your actions and, the next time you want to repeat the same action, you just have to click a button and the recorded macro will run, this way completely automating your tasks. By recording your actions while you are browsing the web you will be able to automatically do: login to websites, download or upload files, automate Google Adwords and, in essence, all type of tasks that you need to perform while you are present on the Internet.

From the webmaster point of view, iMacros simplify the tasks of web applications testing. By using the default macros and tutorials, you can build your own in order to automate the testing of various aspects regarding the performance or validity of the web pages or other applications. For example, if you want to automatically determine the loading time for different web pages, you just have to record your browsing actions in a macro script and then save it. In order to exemplify the code needed to be introduced in the macro after you have recorded and saved, lets consider the next macro:

code
VERSION BUILD=6011231 RECORDER=FX
TAB T=1
SET !FILESTOPWATCH C:stopwatch.csv
STOPWATCH ID=AllProcessTime
STOPWATCH ID=FirstPageLoadTime
URL GOTO=http://www.google.ro/
STOPWATCH ID=FirstPageLoadTime
STOPWATCH ID=SecondPageLoadTime
URL GOTO=http://www.email.com/
STOPWATCH ID=SecondPageLoadTime
STOPWATCH ID=AllProcessTime
In this code, the existence of the third line will determine that all the webpages loading times (precisely measured with the help of function STOPWATCH) to be recorded into the file stopwatch.csv on the root of the C drive. If you notice, the ID used to identify every measured value of the loading time for the individual pages is repeated twice for every URL because the measurement is performed between an initial and a final moment.

For example in the CSV file, to the FirstPageLoadTime ID will correspond the main Google page loading time value. In the same manner, you will be able to customize your own macros to test web pages loading times in case of your projects. It is recommended (due to existence of a certain precision for page loading time measurement) to repeat the measurements until you get at least five sets of values to optimize the results using a mean value.

In conclusion, iMacros is a tool with many useful features, both for webmasters and regular Internet users, that will simplify everyone's life with the multiples tasks automation possibilities offered.