launching web browser and passing login and password

Using VB6, how do I launch a web browser, go to a website that requires a login and password, pass the login and password to the login dialog box, and eventually login into the website?

I know how to launch the web browser by using the SHELL command, but that's it. Or is there a better way of doing this?

[shanep]

Does the login page require that you post the form login data or can you pass the login information through the URL?

If you can login through URL parameters, try passing into shellexecute a similar argument as this:
"http://www.yoursite.com/login.html?user=JohnDoe&password=None"

Remember to look at the html to figure out what the name of the two parameters are.

If you need to post the user name and password, it's kind of a pain. For asp pages, you can't just pass in url parameters. Take a look at this MSDN article:
HOWTO: Automate Internet Explorer to POST Form Data
Article ID: Q167658

It works great, but the only problem with the article is that you have to use IE. Anyone smell anti-competitive? Netscape probably allows you to do something similar, but I've never looked into it.

Hope this helps

This is a similar problem I am having. I want to control the browser through a VB application. Does IE 5.0 allow automation? Do I have access to the DOM model for the browser. I want to develop an app that can login in and then get information then logout of a website. Can anyone help?