How?<\/h2>\n
The task of automatically logging in the admin dashboard and taking screenshots \u00a0proved to be an excellent job for CasperJS<\/a>, an open source navigation scripting & testing utility written in Javascript for the PhantomJS<\/a> WebKit headless browser.<\/p>\n In order to run CasperJS scripts, you need to have NodeJS<\/a> installed. Installing NodeJS on Webfaction is as straightforward as it can get, as it’s done via their control panel in the Applications tab, as shown on the illustration below: It’s useful to put NodeJS executable in your path because then you can run node<\/strong> from any folder. You can do this by going to your\u00a0NodeJS application\u2019s bin directory and execute the following command:<\/p>\n Installing CasperJS is easy via npm <\/a>(Node package manager):<\/p>\n However, \u00a0in order for CasperJS to work, you need to install PhantomJS<\/a>\u00a0and you can do it by cloning it from its GitHub repository and running the build.sh script:<\/p>\n To test if PhantomJS has been successfully installed you can run:<\/p>\n To have the binaries in my path every time I log in\u00a0I added this alias to\u00a0my .bashrc<\/strong>:<\/p>\n and my .bash_profile<\/strong> looks like this:<\/span><\/p>\n First I initialize casper and set few variables (url, saveDir – note that it has to be full path). Then I start casper by visiting the passed in url<\/strong> and fill the login form by using caspers fill()<\/strong> function. After that I click on the login button and woila – I’m logged in. After that I open up the link with the graph and wait 3 seconds for the graph to load, and then I save the selected area by using the\u00a0captureSelector()\u00a0<\/strong>function and a CSS selector of the area I want to save.<\/p>\n This node script uses nodemailer <\/a>which can be installed using npm:<\/p>\nInstallation<\/h2>\n
\n![\"webfactionNodeInstall\"](\"http:\/\/nikola-breznjak.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/webfactionNodeInstall-300x247.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nexport PATH=$PATH:$PWD\/bin\/<\/pre>\n
npm install -g casperjs<\/pre>\n
mkdir -p $HOME\/src\r\n\r\ncd $HOME\/src\r\n\r\ngit clone git:\/\/github.com\/ariya\/phantomjs.git && cd phantomjs\r\n\r\ngit checkout 1.5\r\n\r\n.\/build.sh\r\n\r\ncp $HOME\/src\/phantomjs\/bin\/phantomjs $HOME\/bin<\/pre>\n
phantomjs --version<\/pre>\n
alias nodeset=\"export PATH=$PATH:\/home\/webapp\/node\/bin:\/home\/webapp\/bin\"<\/pre>\n
# User specific environment and startup programs\r\nPATH=$PATH:$HOME\/bin\r\nexport PATH\r\nnodeset<\/pre>\n
CasperJS script for automatically saving images<\/h2>\n
var casper = require(\"casper\").create({\r\n\tverbose: false,\r\n\tlogLevel: 'debug'\r\n});\r\n\r\nvar url = \"http:\/\/your-app.com\/\", \r\n\tsaveDir = \"\/home\/app\/savedImages\";\r\n\r\ncasper.start(url, function() {\r\n\tthis.fill('form#fm_login', {\r\n 'username': 'username',\r\n 'password': 'password',\r\n });\r\n\r\n this.echo(\"I filled the form\");\r\n});\r\n\r\ncasper.then(function(){\r\n\tthis.click('#btn_login');\r\n\tthis.echo(\"I'm, logging in\");\r\n});\r\n\r\n\/\/first graph fetch\r\ncasper.thenOpen(\"http:\/\/your-app.com\/graph_1\", function(){\r\n this.wait(3000, function() {\r\n this.echo(\"I've waited for 3 seconds for the graphs to load.\");\r\n\r\n casper.then(function(){\r\n var fileName = saveDir + '\/graph_1.png';\r\n this.viewport(1920, 1080);\r\n this.captureSelector(fileName, '#page_content');\r\n this.echo('first snapshot taken');\r\n });\r\n }); \r\n});\r\n\r\ncasper.run(function() {\r\n this.echo('done').exit();\r\n});<\/pre>\nNodeJS script for automatically sending email with attachment via Gmail SMTP<\/h2>\n
node install -g nodemailer<\/pre>\n