EasySpider Project Detailed Introduction

Project Overview

EasySpider is a completely free (including commercial use and secondary development) visual browser automation testing/data collection/web scraping software that allows for the design and execution of tasks using a graphical interface and no-code visualization. Users only need to select the content they want to interact with on the webpage and follow the prompts to complete the design and execution of the task.

Core Features

1. Completely Free and Open Source

• Follows the AGPL-3.0 license
• Supports commercial use and secondary development
• No paid authorization required

2. No-Code Visual Design

• Users only need to select the content they want to scrape on the webpage and then follow the prompts to complete the design and execution of the web crawler.
• Graphical interface operation, reducing the technical barrier to entry.
• Supports right-clicking on elements to perform operations.

3. Intelligent Element Recognition

• The software can automatically detect similar product blocks, and you can collect all product information by clicking the "Select All" option.
• Automatically matches similar elements.
• Supports batch data collection.

4. Multiple Execution Methods

• Graphical interface operation
• Command-line execution
• Can be embedded in other systems
• Supports running as a Web service

Main Functions

Data Collection Function

• Product Information Collection: Can collect product titles, prices, descriptions, and other information from e-commerce websites.
• Save by Field: Collected data is automatically saved into different fields.
• Details Page Collection: Supports looping through each link to enter the details page and collect more detailed information.

Browser Automation

• Supports data collection after logging into a website.
• Can handle webpages that require user interaction.
• Supports the collection of JavaScript dynamic content.

Advanced Configuration

• Supports advanced configuration and extension of complex tasks.
• Supports custom conditional judgments.
• Supports dynamic debugging functions.

Technical Architecture

Cross-Platform Support

• EasySpider is cross-platform and can flexibly adapt to different network resources.
• Supports Windows, Linux, macOS, and other operating systems.

Multi-Language Interface

• Supports Chinese and English interfaces.
• Good internationalization support.

Usage Scenarios

1. E-commerce Data Collection

# Typical usage flow
1. Right-click to select a product block
2. The software automatically detects similar products
3. Select "Select All"
4. Click "Collect Data"
5. Data is automatically saved by field

2. Website Content Monitoring

• News website content collection
• Price monitoring
• Inventory monitoring

3. Browser Automation Testing

• Web application functional testing
• User behavior simulation
• Automatic form filling

Installation and Usage

Download Method

• Download the latest version from the GitHub Releases page.
• Official website: www.easyspider.cn (Chinese) / www.easyspider.net (English)

System Requirements

• Supports mainstream operating systems.
• Requires modern browser support.
• Moderate memory and storage space.

Basic Process

1. Launch the EasySpider software.
2. Open the target website in the built-in browser.
3. Right-click to select the element to be operated.
4. Set the operation according to the toolbox prompts.
5. View the defined operations in the workflow manager.
6. Execute the task and view the results.

Community and Support

Documentation Resources

• GitHub Wiki provides detailed documentation.
• Provides Chinese and English tutorials.

Video Tutorials

• Bilibili platform has rich Chinese tutorials.
• YouTube playlist provides English tutorials.
• Covers from beginner to advanced applications.

Examples and Cases

Sample Tasks

• The project's Examples folder provides multiple examples.
• Can be directly imported into EasySpider for use.
• Covers different types of collection scenarios.

Actual Application Cases

• eBay product information collection
• Zhihu website login collection
• Data collection from various e-commerce platforms

Precautions

Legal Compliance

• Only for learning and communication purposes.
• It is strictly forbidden to crawl government/military agency websites.
• Users must bear corresponding legal responsibilities.
• Comply with website robots.txt rules.

Technical Limitations

• Requires understanding the target website structure.
• Complex anti-crawling mechanisms may require additional configuration.
• Dynamic content may require special handling.

Summary

EasySpider is a powerful no-code visual web scraping tool that lowers the technical barrier to web data collection through an intuitive graphical interface. It is not only suitable for technical novices to get started quickly, but also provides professional developers with flexible expansion capabilities. The project's open-source nature and academic background ensure its technological advancement and reliability, making it an excellent choice for web data collection and browser automation.