I need to interact with a windows application by clicking a button in my application. More precisely: how can I write in a textbox or scroll a dropdown menu?
There are multiple ways to do this depending on what kind of application you are automating. If you are automating a WPF application I would suggesting using Microsoft UI Automation (UIA). There are some nice wrappers written around UIA like TestStack.White and FlaUI. FlaUI is the more modern of the two and supports UIAv3 using a COM wrapper. TestStack.White is built on top of a UIAv2 using the managed wrapper in the .NET Framework which is no longer supported.
If you are automating anything else besides a WPF application you can do straight PInvokes to SendMessage. I would suggest staying away from that method and using the Microsoft UIA framework since sending windows messages can get quite verbose. If you really want to go with the Win32 route I suggest using something like AutoIT to automate your application.
Lastly, you will want to download the Windows SDK and run Inspect.exe from that. Inspect.exe is the application that will allow you to see the properties you are attempting to query and the patterns that are available. Applications like AutoIT have essentially built their own Inspect.exe or reference and application call UISpy which is also in the Windows SDK but mostly superseded by Inspect.exe.
Related
Blueprism gives the possibility to spy elements (like buttons and textboxes) in both web-browsers and windows applications. How can I spy (windows-based only) applications using Python, R, Java, C++, C# or other, anything but not Blueprism, preferrably opensource.
For web-browsers, I know how to do this, without being an expert. Using Python or R, for example, I can use Selenium or RSelenium, to spy elements of a website using different ways such as CSS selector, xpath, ID, Class Name, Tag, Text etc.
But for Applications, I have no clue. BluePrism has mainly two different App spying modes which are WIN32 and Active Accessibility. How can I do this type of spying and interacting with an application outside of Blueprism, preferrably using an opensource language?
(only interested in windows-based apps for now)
The aim is of course to create robots able to navigate the apps as a human would do.
I guess you are using selenium for web-browsers
There is also some projects for windows based applications working with a Windows Driver.
Take a look to the project on github, it may be what you are looking for.
https://github.com/2gis/Winium
https://github.com/microsoft/WinAppDriver
Autoit: https://www.autoitscript.com/site/
It also comes with an identify mode for application elements and is has a big community
There is a free version of Blue Prism now :) Also Blue Prism uses win32, active accessibility and UI Automation which is a newer for of the older active accessibility.
To do this yourself without looking into Blue Prism you would need to know how to use UIA with C#/VB.new or C++. There are libraries however given that Blue Prism now has a free version I would recommend using that. Anything specific can be developed withing a code stage within Blue Prism.
I'm looking for a library that can be used in native .NET code, just like any .NET assembly. The purpose of the library must be to automate Windows (push a button, select a window, send keys, record & playback, that sort of thing).
So: the library is supposed to be used natively in .NET, but the automation itself must be able to target any native or .NET Windows application that can receive user input.
Suggestions so far:
benPearce suggested AutoIt. It has a DLL, which is native Win32 but not native .NET and cannot be used without use of .NET Interop.
Chris Dunaway suggested Global Mouse Keyboard Lib. This came closest, but is not an automation lib. It just helps setting up keyboard and mouse hooks.
pm100 suggested Microsoft's WPF UI Automation. This one is pretty good, albeit that it's not available if you develop in .NET 2.0 and it requires the WPF to be installed on the system. It can, however, automate everything from Win32 apps to HTML in a browser.
JasonTrue suggested WebAI from ArtOfTest. This is a testing framework mainly geared towards browsers and web applications. It is unfortunately not well suitable for use for Windows automation.
If nothing else appears available, I'll probably choose Microsoft's UI Automation and upgrade any projects that require it that are still in .NET 2.0 to .NET 3.5, if possible. But I hope for a more widely applicable automation framework (.NET prior to 2.0 does not need to be supported).
Have you looked at the White framework?
I have used AutoIt in the past with success.
microsoft's own built in one is fine
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms747327.aspx
not restricted to wpf as some seem to think.
If you haven't seen it yet, and a commercial library is acceptable, you might check out Ranorex:
http://www.ranorex.com/
I used Ranorex 1.5 quite a bit to write small C# UI automation utilities. It was pretty effective! Development seemed faster compared to using the MS UI Automation API directly, since Ranorex has a lot of useful convenience methods already available.
I haven't used Ranorex 2 very much yet, though.
In Ranorex 1.5, there was also support for traditional Win32 development in C++, but I didn't use it. As far as I know, that's still available in Ranorex 2.
I can't speak to the quality of the record/playback support in Ranorex since I never used that feature.
One final plus: Their support team was really responsive and helpful anytime I emailed them.
This library is pretty interesting and is fairly simple. Perhaps it will help you.
Check out Tools for automated GUI testing on windows
I would still suggest FlaUI for autoamating .Net Desktop,Mobile apps. Its based on Microsoft UIA libraries and have support for external controls like the DevExpress Grid too
Moreover, it is built on top of TestStack.White so indeed a very good library and has a github page also
I have used WebAii from ArtOfTest with a fair degree of success in automating integration testing for a Silverlight app. It also supports WinForms and Web applications.
Microsoft UI Automation, the successor to Active Accessibility, can do almost all of the Windows UI automation you would need.
How about CSharpScript, here's an article about it on Codeproject, and here's the link to the main website. Furthermore, it is familiar C#, scripted which can be used to automate anything.
Hope this helps,
Best regards,
Tom.
I want to write a desktop gadget that will group icons on my desktop (using c# & WPF).
It will be a docked window that I can drag icons to it and they will stay their. Also there can be couple of this windows.
Where do I begin?
**I saw all the post here about it but I got lost. Please direct me to examples and explanation pages.
To expand on cevik's answer:
You cannot create WPF applications as gadgets BUT you have two options (which aren't as bad as you'd expect).
The reason is that widgets are composed mainly of web pages (HTML) and not executable (*.exe).
The problem of course is that WPF will only work with & produce executables.
First option - Windows API:
When I said you can't what I really meant is you can't use the Windows Vista/7 gadget platform to make your widgets.
However, you can always achieve a similar effect by using the Windows API.
The Windows API will let you do stuff to windows such as making them always on the background of other programs, which sounds to me like ~80% there (The rest would be stuff like making sure your window doesn't get re-sized or minimized, etc.).
Just as a note, the function you'd be looking for to make the window behind all other windows would be SetWindowPos (specifically the second parameter).
However make sure there isn't a library which already implements these stuff because it can be rather difficult (and consist of A LOT of surprises).
Second option - Silverlight
silverlight can be perceived as WPF for the web.
That obviously solves our problem.
However there is a cost to it, as expected.
Silverlight doesn't have all the features WPF has (possibly not all of the .NET framework as-well, not sure about that as I'm not really using it).
However it should be more than enough to get you by so you should definitely check it out.
Once you have your Silverlight application (and webpage) you'll have to create a manifest & install the gadget to your desktop. See here how to do so.
Maybe this will help you.
Template to easily get started on developing a Sideber Gadget using Silverlight 3.0 or 4.0 controls in C#.
I'm trying to automate a hidden .NET application, with another .NET application (written in c#) using the easiest way possible. It's NOT for testing purposes, it's a way to fulfill the lack of scripting for this application.
I already tried white framework, but there is one major problems with it: the way it's working. It's slow and it's not working on hidden windows and controls (like the winAPI does). Whats more, when "clicking" white moves the mouse, brings it's targeted window to the front and so on.
I was also thinking about using a user32.dll wrapper, because the way it's handling it's target is what I need, but I've red it's not working with .NET applications. It also would be a problem working with it, because my targeted application got 5 button labeled "...", and would be really hard finding 2 of them I need. I also would like to use the controls .NET id (the name the developer gave to it's controls when designing the GUI).
BTW, my targeted application is MeGUI if that helps. We do a lot of video encoding and a tool like this would help us a lot. I need the MeGUI to be hidden, because I'm the only programmer, others using my tool shouldn't see what happens in the background, not to talk about the many windows popping all around.
You can add a reference to the exe from your project and then create an AppDomain to run its main method. From there, it should be possible to queue delegates to its main thread's loop. With a bit of reflection, you could have those delegates invoke the click events and whatnot directly.
I've never attempted this approach, but it should work.
You should try Stephens idea instead of scripting a hidden app. A .NET Windows Forms App (EXE) is still a .NET Assembly and that means you can use that the same way as a DLL, just add a reference and use the public classes.
If you still want to try some scripting, take a look on the "Microsoft UI Automation" API and the "System.Windows.Automation" namespace.
Nice article here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163465.aspx
MSDN Doc: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.automation.aspx
I am considering porting a WPF application to Silverlight. However, the WPF application uses Watin to spawn IE processes and automate certain tasks.
My question is if there is a way to automate tasks in Silverlight by spawning popups and performing tasks in them similar to how you would with Watin.
I haven't tried this tool yet, but it is the closest I've found to Watin for Silverlight. It is WebAii from Telerik and it is a free download. I ran across it the other day and plan to try it soon.
WebAii Testing Framework plugs
directly into the Silverlight
application it automates and has
access to every single element/object
in the entire Silverlight application.
Beside the ability to perform basic
automation actions like clicking,
moving and setting text, the tool
gives you access to complex properties
on UI elements such as brushes,
borders and even transform matrices.
What’s best is that you can set most
of these properties, which is crucial
for test verifications and
synchronizations.
As far as I know WatiN is a web application test framework, but your question seems to indicate that you are using WatiN to automate tasks in your application. In that context I will try to answer your question.
A Silverlight application is executed in a sandboxed environment and is unable to start new processes on the local computer. However, a Silverlight application can interact with the browser object model that is used to host the Silverlight application. This allows for some interaction with the local environment. If you can fit your use of WatiN into this model you are able to do it from Silverlight but in general you should consider a Silverlight application to live in a sandboxed environment.
Have you had a look at the Silverlight Automation Peer?
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc645045(VS.95).aspx