Sketching out a new project

#1

We have a client that has a website where our client places files for us to download. We go to the client’s website, log in, and are presented with a list of links. We then click on each link to download each file. This got old fast, and our client wasn’t interested on making changes on their side, so someone came up with the idea of automating the process from our side. Our client didn’t mind, so…

I would have created a desktop app in C# using Selenium, but between politics and Visual Studio licensing issues, that idea was nixed, leaving us with PHP as the only option. Our operator will navigate to a site of ours, where he or she will enter our client’s login. This site of ours will then connect to our client’s site, log in, grab the links, and download the files to our operator’s desktop.

Right now, I’m in the chewing-on-it phase. I’m sure I’m going to need cURL, which I haven’t used in a long time. Hell, I’ve coded only in C# the past three years, so I’m back to noob mode in PHP. I used to use CodeIgniter a lot, but this little project isn’t even going to need a database.

I’ll figure it out, but any ideas, opinions, discussions, pot-shots, etc., are welcomed and encouraged. :slight_smile:

#2

They have heard of visual studio code, right? :shifty:

Though it seems to me you could do this with a simple bit of javascript, or a quick browser extension. Something like this (as a start): http://jsfiddle.net/diegolamonica/ssk8z9pa/

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#3

Or use an existing solution like https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/multi-file-downloader/dpecplbkinpdbedgejddhepkgcppgchk?hl=en-GB

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#4

Thanks for the two ideas. I hadn’t mentioned that the files also need to be renamed, but I can write a PowerShell script to do that. This is turning out easier than I thought.

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