HOW TO: Delete all Substack Drafts!

In this one: Bulk deletion of substack drafts using RSelenium

We automated substack! That was great fun and easy enough using RSelenium. In doing so though we created a *bunch* of drafts. Every iteration through, every peculiar logical navigation that Substack requires, each required creating a draft. Deleting that by hand would take forever and having so many drafts had already tripped us up with an image update. So…. we fixed it. We went from a couple of hundred drafts to zero in a couple of minutes. This is a work in progress/hack script, your milage may vary (particularly if the view more images change).

Here’s the R code, much as before we are using the RSelenium package

# Substack does not have a “Delete all drafts” button, so we built one using RSelenium. 

# uses the same connection code as before: 

## Connect                                                                                                                                  

seleniumConnect <- function(){

## selenium connection created here:                                                                                                                                                                       

sel <- remoteDriver(

     remoteServerAddr = "localhost",

     port = 4445L,

     browserName = "firefox"

)

sel$open()

print(sel$getStatus());

gs.exportAll(sel);

return(sel);

}

NavigateSubstackAndLogin <- function(sel){

sel$navigate("http://www.substack.com/");

## signin here                                                                                                                                                                                             

print(sel$getCurrentUrl());

sel$navigate("https://substack.com/sign-in?redirect=%2F");

## find the web element for email                                                                                                                                                                         webElem <- sel$findElement(using = "css", "[name = 'email']");

## enter our username                                                                                                                                                                                   

webElem$clearElement();

webElem$sendKeysToElement(list("probablyNotMy@email.address.com"));

## same again for password                                                                                                                                                                                 

## first click the sign in with password option                                                                                                                                                            

webElem <- sel$findElement(using= "css", "[class='login-option substack-login__login-option']");

print(webElem);

webElem$clickElement()

## now locate and enter the password                                                                                                                                                                       

webElem <- sel$findElement(using = "css", "[name = 'password']");

webElem$clearElement();

webElem$sendKeysToElement(list(vulpusPassword));

print(webElem);

print("Hitting the password continue");

## click the sign in button                                                                                                                                                                                  webElem <- sel$findElement(using= "css", "[class='button primary']")

webElem$clickElement()

## force a wait for a button                                                                                                                                                                           

Sys.sleep(5);

ignoreMe <- sel$findElements(using= "css", "[type='button']")

print("Login should be complete");

}

## And BULK delete drafts

## Be careful, this is an automated delete:- 

## if the navigation is wrong, YOU WILL DELETE SOMETHING ELSE!

## the keep parameter is how many drafts you want to remain (useful for testing)

vulpus_delete_drafts <- function(sel=NULL, keep=5){

if(is.null(sel)){

     sel <- seleniumConnect()

     navigateSubstackAndLogin(sel);

}

sel$navigate("https://vulpus.substack.com/publish/posts");

Sys.sleep(2);

drafts <- sel$findElement(using = "xpath", '//div[contains(text(), "Drafts")]')

drafts$clickElement();

Sys.sleep(2);

while(TRUE){

     ## maybe adapt this to look at the y position of the elements                                                            print("refreshing viewMores");

     ## SVG has an unusual namespace                                         

     viewMores <- sel$findElements(using = "xpath", '//button/*[name()="svg"]/*[1][name()="circle" and @r=1][1]/parent::*/parent::*');

     print(length(viewMores));

     gs.exportAll(viewMores);

     if(length(viewMores) <= keep){

         print("Seems to be below keeper limit");

         break;

     }else{

         for(xx in 1:(min(c(3, length(viewMores))))){

             viewMores[[xx]]$clickElement();

             Sys.sleep(1.2);

             deletePopup <- sel$findElement(using = "xpath", '//div[contains(text(), "Delete")]')

             deletePopup$clickElement();

             Sys.sleep(1.5);

             inputs <- sel$findElements(using = "xpath", '//input')

             if(length(inputs) >= 2){

                 inputs[[2]]$clickElement();

                 inputs[[2]]$sendKeysToElement(list("delete"))

                 deleteButton <- sel$findElement(using = "xpath", '//button[contains(text(), "Delete")]')

                 deleteButton$clickElement();

             }

             Sys.sleep(1);

         }

     }

}

Best of luck in all things,

Vulpus