Posted by Csaba Gabor on 09/03/07 14:55

On Sep 3, 3:14 pm, shimmyshack <matt.fa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sep 3, 2:00 pm, Michael Fesser <neti...@gmx.de> wrote:
>
> > .oO(Jerry Stuckle)
>
> > >OK, you're using the wrong tool for this. PHP is server side, not
> > >client side, and has no idea what happens at the client.
> > Csaba wrote:
>
> > | My question was about CLI PHP (Command Line Interface or CLIent side
> > | php), and not server side processing.
>
> > Micha
>
> Cant you just fire the navigate() method, then sleep for $timeoutTime
> and then execute onDocumentComplete or similar, assume that if it
> doesn't return true that you are safe to fire an error.

Thanks, this is a great suggestion.

> However you
> recognise that even IE cant tell you whether all the frames in a page
> have loaded, and what does onDocumentComplete mean for some remote but
> unessential elements - adverts say..

This is a good point, but I believe I am aware of the relevant issues
(including the difficulty of associating frames with their
containers). Actually, downloadComplete is the event that I key on.
For example, hit that back button on IE and documentComplete does not
fire, whereas downloadComplete does. However, downloadComplete is
exceptionally poorly designed since all you get back is the IE object,
and not even a handle to the window in question. Nevertheless, for a
situation where I only need access to the top level DOM,
downloadComplete (with $ie->readyState >= 3) suffices.

> I'm not at all sure that you
> should be writing this part in PHP, rather and perhaps more stably
> use .NET and expose a COM interface for php to call bespoke methods...
>
> http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa768329.aspx

My objections against .NET are
(1) Bloat - the thing is huge, last time I looked, not to mention that
my Win XP configuration needed to change simply as a result of
installing it.
(2) Stability - When I go to Microsoft's web site to download it (OK,
I haven't checked in well over a year) and see zillions of versions,
that is major red flag territory telling me that it's still
effectively a beta product. When I see an unambiguous -> use this
version <- I'll know there's some semblance of stability. Perhaps
it's already happened?
(3) Difficulty of use - I've occasionally seen newsgroup rambling of
how something that is simple with .COM is tortuous with .NET (sorry,
this is just hearsay since I can't recall any specifics, and it is
also old news)
(4) No compelling reason - Nobody has been able to explain to me what
advantage it would offer to me (I.e. what can I not do with COM that I
would want to do with .NET)

[Back to original message]