Summary

This tutorial will guide you through the steps to setting up a Watch Item that monitors a web page with a form.  This is useful for monitoring a login page or a page with any form data.  This example is included as Watch Item Example #8 when WebWatchBot is first installed.

For this tutorial, refer to the web page http://www.exclamationsoft.com/webwatchbot/testing/http_post_data.html which contains a form.

Steps

1. Create a Watch Item with the URL to monitor set to form's action attribute: http://www.exclamationsoft.com/webwatchbot/testing/http_post_data.asp. In cases where the URL is not fully qualified, e.g. http_post_data.asp without the preceeding http://..., you will need to specify the fully qualified URL.
2. In the Watch Item Properties window, click the "Watch Type Settings" button. The HTTP/HTTPS Settings window will open.
3. Click the "Advanced" button.
4. Change the "Request Type" from "GET" to "POST".
5. Enter the POST DATA. Post data is a combination of the names and values of <input> tags found in a form. The example form has two <input> tags with the names: userid and password. Your post data would look like:
   
   userid=yourname&password=secret
   
   Note: "yourname" and "secret" can be values of your choosing.
6. When the Watch Item runs, it will POST data to the form's action with the data specified.
7. Test the Watch Item by clicking on the "Test" button. You should see the output:
   
   userid=yourname
   password=secret