Interacting with 3rd layer of frames - workaround accessing subframe URL directly

[GitarooDan]

Hi there,

I found an old discussion which referenced by query here and the answer was that tagui was not (at that time) setup to work with 3 layers of frames. From my testing, this seems to be where my automation is falling over. Is there any way around this? I have tried to fiddle the tagui_parse.php file and it now accepts "frame | frame | frame" and translates to...

casper.then(function() {techo('frame a | b | c');});
chrome.withFrame('a', function() {chrome.withFrame('b', function() {chrome.withFrame('c', function() {
{ // start of code block
// code removed
} // end of code block
});});});

However it can't seem to find elements within the 3rd layer of frame like this.

[ruthtxh]

Hi @GitarooDan I don't think it works beyond 2 layers of iframes.
Do you have a website that I can take a look at to see if there's any workarounds?

CC @kensoh to look into this when he is available.

[GitarooDan]

Thanks for getting back to me - the website is an internal one I'm afraid so I can't share it but I have since writing this started getting the URL of the first frame, appending it to the main page URL, opening that as a separate page and then interacting with the further 2 frames from there.

read //iframe[@id='iframeMain']/@src to frameurl
https://[ourwebsite]/desktop/dotnet/desktop/frameurl
frame appFrame
click //*[@name='Select']
frame appFrame | Picker
type UsernameTextBox as username
echo Huzzah I'm into the third frame

It's working, if a little inelegant. I'd still be interested in why my initial solution didn't seem to work!

[kensoh]

Adding on, hi @GitarooDan, your initial solution does not work because other than changing tagui_parse.php, there is also a need to change the chrome.withFrame function in tagui_header.js. TagUI is designed and tested to only work with 2 layers of frames, thus inside the chrome.withFrame function in tagui_header.js the code and logic only handles a main frame and sub frame context. And there isn't code there to cater for a 3rd parameter for a further sub frame.

Your working solution is great, by accessing the initial frame directly, you have gotten around this current TagUI limitation.

PS - sorry for my slow reply, was away past few weeks to organise my mum's funeral and coming back to work again

[GitarooDan]

No worries @kensoh - I'm sorry to hear that, it must be an incredibly difficult time for you. I hope you're doing alright and thank you for taking the time to get back to me.

[kensoh]

Thank you for sharing my pain @GitarooDan, I appreciate it 🙏🏻 I'll have to hurriedly return to my duties as breadwinner and also supporting baby care, though I would wish for more time for grieving and more quiet moments to remember my mum.