In short:

How do you 1. Focus on a prompt popup on IE, 2. Type in a value, and 3. Return?

In Long:

Hi,

I am trying to automate a login/file-downloading process on a company intranet server through VBA. I have gotten the log-in and navigating working, however am stuck on trying to download a file from the site.

The ‘Download’ works as follows:

• When the ‘Download’ button is clicked, ‘createFileForDownload’ is triggered
• Then the user is prompted to input a string
• If there is no input, or if you click “cancel” on the popup it alerts an error message
• If there is a valid input, it begins to compile a file and downloads it to the PC

CODE :

function createFileForDownload(){
    // Main function triggered when the 'Download' button is clicked
    var reason = getReasonForDownload();
    if (reason){
        //Retrieve data from server and create the file for downloading
    }
}

function getReasonForDownload(inputName){
    // The function I cannot get past
    var reasonForDownload = prompt("Specify the reason for your download", "");
    if (reasonForDownload  && reasonForDownload .length > 0) {
        return "<input type='hidden' name='" + inputName + "' value='" + reasonForDownload  +"'>";
    } else {
        alert("You must input a value");
        closeHiddenWaitingFrame();
        $('.waitingPop').removeClass("open"); //Close the waiting frame
        return false;
    }
}

PROBLEM:

However, when I try to access the prompt, it pauses the running VBA code.

Is there any way I could input a string to the prompt and ‘enter’?

What I have attempted so far:

SendKeys

• only runs after the prompt is shown, and I am unable to change focus to the prompt without clicking it manually

Overwriting the OnClick method

• I cannot override the enter onclick function, because the function itself contains the code to actually construct the file for downloading.
• I was hoping there would be a way to overwrite the ‘getReasonForDownload’ function and return it, however it seems I would have to rewrite the entire ‘createFileForDownload’ function to achieve what I want.

Sorry about the lack of info; I cannot post the actual site or code online due to the company’s privacy issues.

Any help would be greatly appreciated: thank you so much in advance!