OutWit's simple format to store and send POST queries for filling online forms.
POST queries are used in Websites to send info to the server without making it visible in the URL. It is usually sent by a form when you click on the 'Submit' button. (A form is not always a page with many textboxes and a 'Submit' button; it can be a login page, a single popup menu, or just a button in the page...).
This function allows you to include POST parameters directly in a URL to be used by OutWit, thanks to a simple format.
This feature can be used everywhere in the program:This format is a way to simply include these POST fields (hidden or not) directly in a URL. For this, you just need to use the following syntax:
http://www.mySite.com/mySearchPage?#POST#field1=value1&#POST#field2=value2...
Four other keywords can be used to set elements of your query: If you use "#HEADER#" instead of #POST the prefixed parameters will be part of the request's header, #CHARSET# will define the character encoding, #TYPE#, the contentType and #REFERER# or #REFERRER#, the request referrer.
Depending on the case, POST queries are more or less easy to use. Sometimes the form just needs values for the fields you can see. In this case using the above format is enough. But in other pages, there are hidden fields that also need to be filled. You need to know what the data should look like for your particular form (hidden fields?).
With OutWit Hub (Expert & Enterprise editions)
For this, the easiest solution is in OutWit Hub Expert: load the page with the form you wish to fill and before clicking on 'Submit', 'OK' or doing the action that will validate your action, choose Intercept Next POST Query in the Navigation menu. Then you can fill the fields you want and click on 'Submit' or other in your page. A dialog will appear with the POST query, using the POST OutWit format. You can copy it, save it in a directory of the 'queries' view, paste it in the URL bar or in the start page of a macro, etc. When the dialog is displayed, you can directly edit the query in the text box and send it. If you click on 'Cancel', the query will not be sent to the server.
Another tool of the Navigation menu is Replace In Next POST Query: When selected, this menu item opens a dialog which allows you to set one or several string(s) to look for in the outgoing POST query and the corresponding replacement string(s). If you need to replace several strings, separate them using semicolons.
If you enter several lines in the second field of the dialog, the replacement will be done in as many queries as there are lines, allowing you to replace strings in a whole series of outgoing POST queries.
Note: A query that you intercept and send to the server may not produce the same effect as the original, had it not been intercepted, especially if you have edited it. There are many possible causes for this. One of the most frequent reasons is that the site owners may have introduced an encrypted key within the POST parameters. Such keys may even be time-sensitive.
In such cases, replacements can be more reliable as they are done on the fly, leaving the other parameters untouched. These functions will help you cover a broad scope of situations and needs but there are always cases that cannot be solved. You may want to try other available tools to snif / intercept outgoing queries, in order to build your own with the OutWit POST format.
With other tools
If you do not own the Expert (or Enterprise) edition or if the information you get with the 'Intercept' function is not enough, you can use a program like the firefox add-on called "httpfox" (there are several similar tools available). Run httpfox, click on 'Start' to tell the program to begin listening outgoing and incoming data, click on the submit button of your form and look at the POST data tab in httpfox. It will give you all the fields of the POST data. Then you can create your POST URL in OutWit.
Very Important Note: Forms filled this way are NOT SECURE at all. In a login form, for instance, the info (including the password) being included within the URL, it will remain in your browser cache.