[HTTP Extract Node] Would this be possible or worthy of a feature request?

1

Not sure if any of you use HTML Extract regularly like me, but one thing I hate having to do is have one window open with “Browser Developer Tools open” trying to grab the CSS selector information
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and then adding them into the CSS box in the HTML Extract node
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Surely if the node before it the RAW HTML that you are wanting to extract from, the CSS classes are also listed there e.g

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Wouldnt it be handy to have a drop-down and you can choose the Class and attribute you want to extract from as its parsed from what was detected in the previous node?

Do you understand what I’m trying to explain? Would save a fair bit of time with copy and paste :wink:

2

I use that feature a bunch when it comes to automating browser actions with Selenium / Chrome web driver. That selector tool makes life so much easier when it comes to making sure you get the right element.

3

yeah its very handy, but im sure n8n can bake something like that selector that the browser uses into the selector free text box if that makes sense.

Dont even know if its possible to do, but just thought it was a cool idea :wink:

4

Technically anything is possible it is just code right, I guess it just needs to go into the feature pile until someone has a bunch of time to add it :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

1 Like
5

indeed. needs demand i suppose :wink:

6

I see how that can be helpful. However, in practice, it gets tricky. For example, The node can have N inputs, and the property that holds the data you want can be in any part of the inputs. We would have to add extra fields to the nodes where the user can define where to look for the data to create the data that feeds the select (the field you want to populate with options). That, not sure if it will make n8n more difficult rather than easier to do. That is my opinion thinking about it for 3 minutes, with some more thinking I might change my mind. Btw I think @david had something like this in his mind.

7

you talking about using :nth-child etc?

8

I’m taking about loading the classes (taken from the input) in the CSS Selector field.

9

yeah, maybe it needs some proper planning and thinking to see if it was worth it i guess. maybe one for the back burner for one of the quiet office days. lol