As of my last update, the headless_chrome crate in Rust is a high-level API for programmatically interacting with web pages through the Chrome browser. It is essentially a Rust wrapper around the Chrome DevTools Protocol, which does allow for the control of multiple tabs or windows within the same browsing context or session.
However, the level of support for multi-tab or multi-window management can depend on the specific implementation details of the headless_chrome crate and may require you to directly interact with the Chrome DevTools Protocol if such functionality is not exposed through high-level functions.
The typical way to manage multiple tabs in a browser automation setting is to create new tabs (or windows) and switch between them by referencing their unique identifiers. In the context of the Chrome DevTools Protocol, these identifiers are known as targetIds.
Here's an example of how you might work with multiple tabs in a generic sense using the Chrome DevTools Protocol. Note that the actual Rust headless_chrome crate may require a different approach if it abstracts some of these details:
// Pseudo-code for illustrative purposes. Actual code may differ.
// Assuming you have a browser instance created
let browser = Browser::new(/* ... */)?;
// Create a new tab
let tab = browser.new_tab()?;
// Navigate to a webpage in the new tab
tab.navigate_to("http://example.com")?;
// Do some work in the new tab...
// If you need to create another tab
let tab2 = browser.new_tab()?;
tab2.navigate_to("http://anotherexample.com")?;
// Do some work in the second tab...
// You can switch back to the first tab if needed
// You'd typically use a tab reference or ID to do this
If you need to manage multiple tabs or windows, you'd have to keep track of the references to these tabs and switch between them as needed. The crate's documentation or source code would be the best place to look for specific examples or to confirm the current capabilities. Always ensure you're working with the latest version of the crate and consult the latest documentation for updates on features and usage.
As of now, if the headless_chrome crate does not support multi-tab or multi-window management directly, you might need to look into sending commands to the Chrome DevTools Protocol yourself, or consider contributing to the crate to add such features if you're comfortable with Rust development. Alternatively, you could investigate other automation tools or libraries that have this functionality built-in.
