Mechanize and DOMForm

Mentionable Python discovery of the day:

DOMForm is a Python module for web scraping and web testing. It knows how to evaluate embedded JavaScript code in response to appropriate events.

Basically it's a python DOM implementation with JavaScript support (using the Mozilla Spidermonkey JavaScript-C engine).

It's great for screen scraping and, apparently planned for inclusion in in Mechanize.

Mechanize

Worthy of notice is Mechanize, a stateful programmatic web browsing module. It's very useful for web unit testing.

Check it out at:

• DOMForm -- http://wwwsearch.sourceforge.net/DOMForm/
• Mechanize -- http://wwwsearch.sourceforge.net/mechanize/

An Idea: Live search for Python Documentation

Here's an idea stirring in my mind lately.

I've been playing around with various implementations of browser auto-completion. This, combined with the XMLHttpRequest allows for some pretty nifty ''live search'' widgets.

I'm planning to add a search functionality like this to the python sidebar, probably using Swish-E and a custom search term ''extraction'' script to scrape the documentation.

When you type in the search field, the results should be weighted and prioritized like:

1. Built-in object names
2. Standard Module names
3. Standard Class names (in modules)
4. Documentation headings

Selecting the result should open the relevant documentation page in the main browser window.