How to automate a Chrome internal page like "chrome://flags"

Panos · November 20, 2022, 4:37am

Trying to open page “chrome://flags” or any similar internal link of chrome (like chrome://version etc). RPA can open them but does not see that opened and waiting there.Finally drops the message “a valid URL is needed”. Is this a bug ? I think in past this worked (around version 5 ) .

admin · November 22, 2022, 3:41pm

Hi, automating a Chrome internal page like the chrome://flags or chrome://extensions page is not possible in web automation mode, but it works great in desktop automation with XClick and XType. I created a small demo macro. It changes the status of the 2D canvas accerlation from disabled to enabled. Note that I first enter “2D” in the search box the display the option, and then text search (with local OCR) for the word “disabled”. Then simulate key down and enter press - and done!

Macro:

{
  "Name": " ChromeInternal",
  "CreationDate": "2022-11-22",
  "Commands": [
    {
      "Command": "store",
      "Target": "true",
      "Value": "!errorignore",
      "Description": "Internal pages do not fire a page load event, so there will be a timeout error with the OPEN command below."
    },
    {
      "Command": "store",
      "Target": "3",
      "Value": "!timeout_pageload",
      "Description": "Otherwise we would wait forever, as internal pages have no load event"
    },
    {
      "Command": "open",
      "Target": "chrome://flags/",
      "Value": "",
      "Description": "Load flags page"
    },
    {
      "Command": "store",
      "Target": "false",
      "Value": "!errorignore",
      "Description": "Back to normal: Stop for errors"
    },
    {
      "Command": "bringBrowserToForeground",
      "Target": "true",
      "Value": "",
      "Description": ""
    },
    {
      "Command": "XDesktopAutomation",
      "Target": "true",
      "Value": "",
      "Description": ""
    },
    {
      "Command": "XClick",
      "Target": "ocr=Search",
      "Value": "",
      "Description": "Click in search box"
    },
    {
      "Command": "XType",
      "Target": "2D",
      "Value": "",
      "Description": "Search for setting"
    },
    {
      "Command": "XClick",
      "Target": "ocr=Disabled",
      "Value": "",
      "Description": "Open the dropdown"
    },
    {
      "Command": "XType",
      "Target": "${KEY_DOWN}",
      "Value": "",
      "Description": ""
    },
    {
      "Command": "XType",
      "Target": "${KEY_ENTER}",
      "Value": "",
      "Description": ""
    }
  ]
}