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<!DOCTYPE html>
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<title>Bumblebee: browser automation</title>
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<title>Bumblebee: browser automation</title>
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<h2 class="center" id="title">BUMBLEBEE: BROWSER AUTOMATION</h2>
<h6 class="center">02 APRIL 2025</h5>
<br>
<div class="twocol justify"><p>Built with Andy Zhang for an employer. Tool to automate web scraping script
generation.</p>
<video style="max-width:100%; margin-bottom: 10px" controls="" poster="poster.png">
<source src="bee.mp4" type="video/mp4" />
</video>
<p>Manual script authoring took hours. Scripts poorly optimized, CPUs maxed
constantly, cloud costs excessive.</p>
<p>Initially considered browser extension. Desktop app won—extensions don’t give
deep event control. Company policy blocked extensions anyway.</p>
<p>First prototype: C# Win Forms + CefSharp.</p>
<p>Second prototype: C# Win Forms + WebView2. Packaging and distribution more
complex, but the API is well-designed; integrates well with Win Forms.</p>
<p>Microsoft Edge required. Portability not a concern, only need to target
controlled Windows environments. Choosing WebView2 over CefSharp.</p>
<p>Embed <a href="https://github.com/desjarlais/Scintilla.NET" class="external" toarget="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Scintilla.NET</a> editor for
overriding generated script.</p>
<p>Code generation sequence: Inject JavaScript to intercept client-side events.
Capture internal browser events (pop-ups, file downloads). Event
raised → parsed into a token → insert to list → interpret event → look up
instruction from a table → form instruction with event args → insert text to a
parallel list → run both lists through optimizer → update Scintilla editor.</p>
<p>Limitation: manual overriding via Scintilla editor mid-session causes the code
list to go out of sync with the event list. Optimizer can’t handle this yet.</p>
<p>Note to self: need to rethink the event/text list data structures in the
context of the optimizer–look to compilers for inspiration maybe?</p>
</div>
<p class="post-author right">by W. D. Sadeep Madurange</p>
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