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better way to automate c# gui applications controls using python

is there better way to automate c# gui applications including datagridview and its internally added controls using python I tried with PywinAuto is there any other tool/ module available in python? Plz let me know

If you are looking at PyWinAuto, then I assume you are asking about free/open-source, as opposed to commercial support. There are a host of commercial tools available. AutoIT and white are good ones to check out.

Automated Flash Testing with C#

I am trying to write some software for automated testing of flash contained within webpages.
Specifically I am looking for assistance with 'hooking' onto a webpage which is running the flash and gaining access to the controls and events it uses so that I can simulate button clicks and then listen for the responses it produces.
Since it could be any flash movie running, I need to be able to gain access to the controls so I can try and make an educated guess as to which ones I need to simulate clicking.
I need it to be free or perhaps open source hopefully with examples ideally in a .net technology.
Can anyone offer assistance or examples, please?
Many thanks

There is Ruby library called FlashWatir. Not exactly what you were looking for, but close.

First, Flash pages can be manipulated with JavaScript. For a reference on this see: http://www.adobe.com/support/flash/publishexport/scriptingwithflash/scriptingwithflash_06.html
You can write something in C# or use Selenium (open source) to test the whole thing with some scripting. Selenium Remote Control has support for DotNet.
Selenium Remote Control
http://seleniumhq.org/projects/remote-control/
Tutorial on using Selenium to test Flash:
http://wiki.openqa.org/display/SRC/Testing+Flash+with+Selenium+RC
Hope this helps.

Getting input into a process

While talking with a friend over yahoo messenger, I told him would be really cool to make a bot to answer with generic messages when someone starts a conversation. Upon thinking about what I told him, I realized it would be quite interesting to do something like that. The problem is that I don't know much about win32.
So my question is this: how do you 'link' a process to both another one and the windows environment? The goal would be to have an application running in the background which makes some sort of a query to see what windows are opened and when a new yahoo messenger conversation window appears it should send a list of keystroke events to that window.
I could use either C# or VC++ for the programming part and I can use any help: either specific answers or tips that could help me - e.g.: what to google for. So far my google research only came up with some apps/dlls/code that do that for you and some scripting stuff and I'm not exactly searching for that. I want to do all the work myself so I can learn from it.

It seems like you basically want to control other applications.
There are roughly 2 ways to do this on windows
1 - Use the low level windows API to blindly fire keyboard and mouse events at your target application.
The basic way this works is using the Win32 SendInput method, but there's a ton of other work you have to do to find window handles, etc, etc
2 - Use a higher level UI automation API to interact with the application in a more structured manner.
The best (well, newest anyway) way to do this is using the Microsoft UI Automation API which shipped in windows vista and 7 (it's available on XP as well). Here's the MSDN starter page for it.
We use the microsoft UI automation API at my job for automated UI testing of our apps, and it's not too bad. Beware though, that no matter how you chose to solve this problem, it is fraught with peril, and whether or not it works at all depends on the target application.
Good luck

Not quite the same domain as what you're looking for, BUT this series of blog posts will tell you what you need to know (and some other cool stuff).
http://www.codingthewheel.com/archives/how-i-built-a-working-poker-bot

If you really want to learn everything from scratch, then you should use C++ and native WIN32 API functions.
If you want to play a bit with C#, then you should look the pinvoke.net site and Managed Windows API project.
What you'll surely need is the Spy++ tool.

http://pinvoke.net/ seems to be the website you are looking for. The site explains how to use Windows API functions in higher level languages. Search on pinvoke for any of the functions I've listed below and it gives you the code necessary to be able to use these functions in your application.
You'll likely want to use the FindWindow function to find the window in which you're interested.
You'll need the process ID, so use GetWindowThreadProcessId to grab it.
Next, you'll need to use OpenProcess allow for reading of the process's memory.
Afterwards, you'll want to use ReadProcessMemory to read into the process's memory to see what happening with it.
Lastly, you'll want to use the PostMessage function to send key presses to the window handle.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Windows API programming.

Check out Autohotkey. This is the fastest way to do what you want.

automating .NET applications

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

Need help in finding name of specific thing I'm trying to do

I think it's possible to somehow hook with the windows environment (specifically explorer.exe) and trigger specific things, for example launching control panel and using it as if I had mouse (meaning I'm clicking the interface from the code).
Basically what I'm trying to do is automate some redundant tasks I do often, just I don't know how it's done, or even how it's called. Anyone can point me in right direction?
Thanks!

Forget about "automated clicking". GUI tools are just front-ends to control the system. You can control the system like they do, it will be much easier.
Huge possibilities can give you Microsoft Management Console. Each "snap-in" can be accessed via COM model. Some of them have GUI front-ends, find and fire "*.msc" files (somewhere in Windows directory) to try them.
There is many command line tools i.e. "net" command has huge abilities related to networking.
PowerShell may be a better choice instead of C# or C++, it's designed for task automation. You can easily use COM, .NET, MMC ...

Windows Explorer has a COM object model that you can call from both C# and C++. (Most of the examples on MSDN are in Javascript or VBScript, which I guess aren't your languages of choice, but they demonstrate that the API is straightforward to call.)

AutoHotKey is a scripting environment specifically designed for this sort of task

If you want mostly to launch control panel you can do using RunDll32 interface existing in the most control panel applets. See http://www.osattack.com/windows-7/huge-list-of-windows-7-shell-commands/ , http://support.microsoft.com/kb/167012 or http://www.winvistaclub.com/t57.html for example. For the corresponding API see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/164787.
Another option is usage of control.exe (see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc144191.aspx and http://vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/control.htm).
If you google more you will find much more examples which you can to automate a lot of things without using of some general ways to automate GUI.

At more or less the lowest level within Win32, you can use the SendMessage() API to send raw click messages to windows of interest. This will rely on a lot of intrusive knowledge about the apps you intend to drive. However, you could easily implement a "click recorder" that could replay click sequences captured from user interaction.