[ale] How to drive Linux browser to make a campground sniper?

[Mark@markulmer.com]

Neal,
Have you looked at getting a head start by having someone build you the  website scraping part for you? You may look at Fiverr.com and search for website scraping and/or automation. You should be able to get initial custom script built for anywhere from $5-$25. I’ve had great experiences with these freelancers. Be sure to include Linux in your requirements. 

Mark Ulmer

>> On January 13, 2018 1:16:34 PM Neal Rhodes via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Boring "Real-World Details":
>> 
>> So, we are planning a summer trip to Glacier National Park in Montana. 
>> 
>> We would really like to camp at Many Glaciers Campground in the park.  However, at present,  all the sites are already reserved.   They are reserved through recreation.gov, starting 6 months to the day from today. 
>> 
>> But we have a really strong impression that people initially book a long stretch, then later either reduce the duration once they get more specific plans, or cancel. 
>> 
>> SO, we really want to detect if/when sites become available over the next 6 months and jump on it before someone else does. 
>> 
>> There is someone who offers this as a service for $40 a reservation, irrespective of whether they are successful.
>> 
>> Exciting Technology Application: 
>> 
>> Initially I looked at the HTML for their search page, with the thought of using "wget" to simulate the reservation request.   That increasingly looks like a fool's errand, assuming that they may have session cookies related to sign-on and other magic handshake crap that would be difficult to simulate.  And what happens when they alter their data fields? 
>> 
>> Then I thought:  All I want to do is: 
>> Setup a browser window on our Centos 6 desktop, any browser that understands https;
>> Run that browser through the responses to get it to the search window on this campground, and put in all the dates and related input. 
>> Then: 
>> Run SOMETHING that will automate: 
>> Hit the Search Submit button;
>> See if the resultant page contains "No Suitable availability"
>> IF Not: Email me
>> Sleep 15 minutes
>> Rinse, Later, Repeat
>> 
>> This sounds to me like a very elemental application of a test/control manager for a GUI interface.    If I can automate an existing browser, we can eliminate all the complexities of trying to fake out their web server. 
>> 
>> Since this just sits on my desk in the basement, I can live with hard-coded screen coordinates. 
>> 
>> What tools exist in Linux to do this? 
>> 
>> regards, 
>> 
>> Neal Rhodes
>> MNOP Ltd
>> 
>> 
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