Zen usage and rainmeter+webparser

I'm trying to get my remaining amount available for display in a rainmeter skin.

rainmeter is a very flexible windows app that allows all manor of variables to be displayed. E.g.

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs51/i/2009/308/a/6/Enigm...

If I were better at coding I would try and write an actual plugin for rainmeter to use the zen usage api. Sadly that's beyond my ability. My second option is to use an existing plugin for rainmeter called webparser. Basically is downloads a webpage and scrapes any data you want and allows you to utilise it in the app.

So, in theory, I give it the webpage for my portal and it fetches my remaining usage for use in the app. The problem is that the portal is a protected webpage and webparser doesn't support cookies, so it would have to login. The portal doesn't allow the credentials in the url as far as I know, so I can't use https://username:[email protected].......

So, I think I'm stuffed

Anyone have any ideas? Is there any way to craft a special url that will retrieve a page that contains my remaining usage without needing login, or supporting url credentials? Or is there any way to use the api to do something similar?

Or...

I could make a webpage that contains the necessary code to display my usage. I could use webparser to scrape that. But alas, I'm not familiar with the javascript that would be required

Here's hoping...

I'm not personally familiar with the app but there's possibly someone in the Software Development board that is or at the very least could be of assistance to you to write your own plugin!

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/development.html

In reply to a post by dhaider:

I'm trying to get my remaining amount available for display in a rainmeter skin.

rainmeter is a very flexible windows app that allows all manor of variables to be displayed. E.g.

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs51/i/2009/308/a/6/Enigm...

If I were better at coding I would try and write an actual plugin for rainmeter to use the zen usage api. Sadly that's beyond my ability. My second option is to use an existing plugin for rainmeter called webparser. Basically is downloads a webpage and scrapes any data you want and allows you to utilise it in the app.

So, in theory, I give it the webpage for my portal and it fetches my remaining usage for use in the app. The problem is that the portal is a protected webpage and webparser doesn't support cookies, so it would have to login. The portal doesn't allow the credentials in the url as far as I know, so I can't use https://username:[email protected].......

So, I think I'm stuffed

Anyone have any ideas? Is there any way to craft a special url that will retrieve a page that contains my remaining usage without needing login, or supporting url credentials? Or is there any way to use the api to do something similar?

Or...

I could make a webpage that contains the necessary code to display my usage. I could use webparser to scrape that. But alas, I'm not familiar with the javascript that would be required

Here's hoping...

The portal and most of the Zen websites use .NET forms authentication to protect the content.

Forms authentication (in this case) works by issuing a cookie to your browser which contains encrypted tokens. Each time your browser makes a request to the websites that the cookie is valid for, the tokens are submitted back to the server for validation against the list of sessions that are currently authenticated.

If the application you are trying to use does not support cookies then there is no way you can store and send these tokens back to the server to get your usage. Each request you make will be unauthorised and will redirect you back to the login page.

There is no accessible web page where you can view usage stats without authenticating and being authorised to access the stats for the account in question. This is for good reason and will not change since presenting information such as this anonymously would be a serious data breach.

If you do not like any of the existing usage clients Try creating you own client, you can use the example clients as a starting point.

Good luck