Traffic window

Created by Stanislav N.
Last updated: Aug 10, 2021 by ZL Support

Table of contents

Description

The traffic window contains all requests made by the ProjectMaker browser. Requests made using actions will also be included here. GET request , POST request , HTTP requests

View of the traffic window after going to https://lessons.zennolab.com/en/advanced

How to work with the traffic window?

Turning on

In the top menu, look for Window and select Traffic from the drop-down list .

There are times when the window is not displayed, although there is a checkbox next to it in the settings (as shown in the screenshot above), indicating that it is enabled. If, after several attempts to enable it, it still does not appear, then you can perform a general reset of the windows settings in ProjectMaker.

ATTENTION! The steps described below will reset the window settings, in other words, if you have customized the program interface for yourself by arranging its windows in a way convenient for you, then all these settings will be deleted and the default value will be set.

Go to the settings (Edit-Settings), select the Debug tab and at the very bottom of the window look for the Reset Panels button. After clicking this button and restarting ProjectMaker, all window settings will be reset, but enabling the window should work correctly.

 

Window appearance

List of requests made

Main window. Contains the following columns:

Content policy settings

This point is described below in the article.

Group by domain

A tab with its requests will be created for each domain (a separate tab is created for each subdomain):

 

Search panel

Can be used in tandem with Grouping.

The screenshot shows an example of finding uploaded JavaScript files for the https://yandex.ru/ domain

Group by default

If you click on the heading of any column, the requests will be sorted alphabetically by that column. The Sort by default option allows you to restore the original order of requests - by the time they were sent.

Auto-scrolling

When this option is active, the traffic window will automatically scroll when new requests are received. Thus, the newest request will always be in sight.

Clear

Removes all requests from the window.

Turn on / off columns

If you right-click on any title, a context menu will appear in which you can enable/disable the displayed columns

Details of the request

Double-clicking on any request in the traffic window will open detailed information on this request. This window contains four tabs. Let's briefly go through all:

1. Headings

This tab contains basic information on request:

  • URL

  • Method

  • Response status

  • Proxy (if used)

  • Request and response headers

2. Cookies

Sent and received cookies

3. Parameters

Parameters sent in the request:

  • Request string - there will be parameters that are sent as part of the URL (for the request from this screenshot, the URL looked like this - https://httpbin.org/post?urlparam1=val1&urlparam2=ProjectMaker )

  • Request data - parameters sent in the request body.

4. Response

The screenshot shows the server response after a POST request to https://httpbin.org/post .

What is it used for?

  • Analysis of requests made by the browser:

  • Blocking unwanted requests (using whitelists or blacklists)

Query context menu

By right-clicking on any request in the traffic window, a context menu with additional options will appear.

Copying request data

You can easily copy the request URL, headers (both request and response) and the response from the server.

Automatic request creation

ProjectMaker will automatically create an action with the required request type. Will substitute headers, parameters, proxies (if used).

After creating it, it's still better to manually check the data that got into the action.

Content policy. White and black lists

With the help of the content policy, you can deny/allow PorjectMaker to load specific domains, URLs. You can also use regular expressions for this .

There are three possible states:

Either blacklist or whitelist can be used at one time

  1. Without blocking - all addresses will be loaded without exception.

  2. White list - only domains and addresses specified in the whitelist will be loaded.

  3. Black list - all addresses will be loaded, except for those on the blacklist.

What is it for?

  • ProjectMaker waits for the page to fully load before executing any action. But there are situations when the page is in a state of perpetual loading or ve-e-e-ery lo-o-o-ong page load, which slows down the execution of the template. The problem may be that the browser is trying to load some script from a third-party resource, but for some reason it fails. This is where the Content Policy will help you - add the script address to the Black List , switch the policy state to the Black List, and this unloadable script will no longer spoil your life.

  • by blocking unwanted addresses, you can:

    • increase page loading speed

    • improve the stability of templates

    • reduce the amount of consumed traffic (especially important for proxies with limited traffic)

How it works?

There are several ways to enable black/white lists.

Method number 1 (the simplest)

Right-click in the Traffic window on the required request and add a domain or address from this request to one of the lists. If the Content Policy action did not exist in the project before, it will be automatically added (the mode in the newly added action will depend on which list you added the domain / address to - white or black)

The elements added in this way can then be edited manually in the action itself.

Method number 2 (via the context menu)

Add Action -> Browser -> Settings

In the action settings (in the drop-down menu), look for Content Policy

  1. Selecting the working mode.

  2. Filtering address (domain or regular expression )

  3. Address processing mode from point #2

  4. Using this button, you can delete a condition (alternative option: select the desired condition and press the DELETE key on the keyboard)

Method number 3 (through the Profile window )

First, click on the Profile icon in the main window ProjectMaker(1), the current profile window will open, in it open the Browser tab(2). At the bottom of this tab, you need to activate the Content (3) . Here you can manually add new conditions for filtering requests.

In version 7.1.6.0 with a standard theme ( Interface - Light, Editor - Modern2), it may not be entirely obvious how to add new rules manually (this applies both to the method through the profile and through the action).

Immediately after adding an action and selecting one of the modes (White or Black List), the top line will be highlighted.

After adding a new condition and selecting the type of processing, the cursor does not move to a new line and the “Add” button does not appear

To add a new rule, you need to click several times under the newly added condition and you will have the opportunity to create another one.

Below is attached a GIF animation that captures the whole process (when added through the profile, everything is identical)

Usage example

Consider an example based on the forum https://zennolab.com/discussion/

Opening the traffic window and clicking on the above URL, you will see a large number of requests that the browser makes - to VK, Facebook, Yandex, Google, CloudFlare and other resources besides https://zennolab.com/discussion/ .

The screenshot shows only a small part of the requests.

Let's imagine that you need to block requests to VK, Facebook and Yandex. Additionally, you want to prevent the loading of URLs containing the word analytics (anywhere in the URL). Here's what a Content Policy action might look like to accomplish the above tasks:

This is how the traffic window looks like after applying the rules from the screenshot above and re-entering https://zennolab.com/discussion/