I'm not familiar with PowerBuilder but I have a task to create Automatic UI Test Application for PB. We've decided to do it in Python with pywinauto and iaccesible libraries. The problem is that some UI elements like newly added lists record can not be accesed from it (even inspect32 can't get it).
Any ideas how to reach this elements and make them testable?
I'm experimenting with code for a tool for automating PowerBuilder-based GUIs as well. From what I can see, your best bet would be to use the PowerBuilder Native Interface (PBNI), and call PowerScript code from within your NVO.
If you like, feel free to send me an email (see my profile for my email address), I'd be interested in exchanging ideas about how to do this.
I didn't use PowerBuilder for a while but I guess that the problem that you are trying to solve is similar to the one I am trying to address for people making projects with SCADA systems like Wonderware Intouch.
The problem with such an application is that there is no API to get or set the value of a control. So a pywinauto approach can't work.
I've made a small tool to simulate the user events and to get the results from a screencapture. I am usig PIL and pytesser ORM for the analysis of the screen captures. It is not the easiest way but it works OK.
The tool is open-source and free of charge and can be downloaded from my website (Sorry in french). You just need an account but it's free as well. Just ask.
If you can read french, here is one article about testing Intouch-based applications
Sorry for the self promotion, but I was facing a similar problem with no solution so I've written my own. Anyway, that's free and open-source...
I've seen in AutomatedQa support that they a recipe recommending using msaa and setting some properties on the controls. I do not know if it works.
If you are testing DataWindows (the class is pbdwxxx, e.g. pbdw110) you will have to use a combination of clicking at specific coordinates and sending Tab keys to get to the control you want. Of course you can also send up and down arrow keys to move among rows. The easiest thing to do is to start with a normal control like an SLE and tab into the DataWindow. The problem is that the DataWindow is essentially just an image. There is no control for a given field until you move the focus there by clicking or tabbing. I've also found that the DataWindow's iAccessible interface is a bit strange. If you ask the DataWindow for the object with focus, you don't get the right answer. If you enumerate through all of the children you can find the one that has focus. If you can modify the source I also advise that you set AccessibleName for your DataWindow controls, otherwise you probably won't be able to identify the controls except by position (by DataWindow controls I mean the ones inside the DataWindow, not the DataWindow itself). If it's an MDI application, you may also find it useful to locate the MicroHelp window (class fnhelpxxx, e.g. fnhelp110, find from the main application window) to help determine your current context.
Edited to add:
Sikuli looks very promising for testing PowerBuilder. It works by recognizing objects on the screen from a saved fragment of screenshot. That is, you take a screenshot of the part of the screen you want it to find.
Related
I need help.
I'm doing a UI automation, and it works properly.
However, it waits for all controls get done, but for example, the textbox I want to send keys is activated.
Because of that, my automation is very slow, and I couldn't find any helpful information in module documentation.
Thank you all
I find out the solution. If you have the same problem, you should always search for controls, with child_window function.
If you use the bracket notation, pywiauto will search all controls from root window, and depending the application, it takes a long time.
However, using child window, you can filter by control type, title and automation id
Global timings for every operation can be changed in module pywinauto.timings:
https://pywinauto.readthedocs.io/en/latest/code/pywinauto.timings.html
But please be careful. Aggressive timings can make some actions unstable.
I want to retrieve information from a tooltip in the system tray programmatically.
The image shows the tooltip.
Now, I found that by using Microsoft's inspect.exe, which is "a Windows-based tool that enables you select any UI element and view the element's accessibility data", that it is in theory possible to retrieve this value programmatically.
Hovering over the the pandora icon in the toolbar shows me the following properties
It shows one property "name" that contains the exact data I need. I'm unsure how to retrieve this value programmatically using the win32api. I have a hwnd to the pandora icon already.
Additionally, a different ui spy tool, UiSpy.exe calls this same property "helpText" (different song name :p)
I tried using getWindowText(pandoraSystrayIconHwnd) but that returns a different text. Does anyone know what this "name" value is, and how I can retrieve it using the win32api? It should be possible because inspect.exe is an external program that can access the data somehow
I'm doing this in Python, as the target application is written in Python already.
These spy apps are probably using Active Accessibility and/or UI Automation.
You can try calling AccessibleObjectFromWindow on the toolbar HWND or AccessibleObjectFromPoint if you care about the mouse position and then call IAccessible::get_accName.
Keep in mind that the classname and window hierarchy of the tray icon toolbar is undocumented.
If you only care about Pandora and not other applications then I would strongly suggest that you look for other alternatives first. Perhaps they have a hidden window with the title etc.
If you don't mind hacks then you could take a look at TraySaver, it is open source and knows the internal format of the data stored for each icon in the tray toolbar. Keep in mind that it is pretty old and might not work on newer versions of Windows. If you go down this path (and I don't recommend it) then you have to remember that you need to support both 32-bit and 64-bit Explorer.
Maybe GUI automation library pywinauto could help you. It uses Win32 API or UI Automation under the hood (by your choice). Core concept is described in the Getting Started Guide.
Method .window_text() returns exactly the same as Name property shows in Inspect.exe.
To interact with tray area icons you can use this example on StackOverflow.
Is there any way I can create a UAC-like environment in Python? I want to basically lock the workstation without actually using the Windows lock screen. The user should not be able to do anything except, say, type a password to unlock the workstation.
You cannot do this without cooperation with operating system. Whatever you do, Ctrl-Alt-Del will allow the user to circumvent your lock.
The API call you're looking for Win32-wise is a combination of CreateDesktop and SetThreadDesktop.
In terms of the internals of Vista+ desktops, MSDN covers this, as does this blog post. This'll give you the requisite background to know what you're doing.
In terms of making it look like the UAC dialog - well, consent.exe actually takes a screenshot of the desktop and copies it to the background of the new desktop; otherwise, the desktop will be empty.
As the other answerer has pointed out - Ctrl+Alt+Delete will still work. There's no way around that - at least, not without replacing the keyboard driver, anyway.
As to how to do this in Python - it looks like pywin32 implements SetThreadDesktop etc. I'm not sure how compatible it is with Win32; if you find it doesn't work as you need, then you might need a python extension to do it. They're not nearly as hard to write as they sound.
You might be able to get the effect you desire using a GUI toolkit that draws a window that covers the entire screen, then do a global grab of the keyboard events. I'm not sure if it will catch something like ctrl-alt-del on windows, however.
For example, with Tkinter you can create a main window, then call the overrideredirect method to turn off all window decorations (the standard window titlebar and window borders, assuming your window manager has such things). You can query the size of the monitor, then set this window to that size. I'm not sure if this will let you overlay the OSX menubar, though. Finally, you can do a grab which will force all input to a specific window.
How effective this is depends on just how "locked out" you want the user to be. On a *nix/X11 system you can pretty much completely lock them out (so make sure you can remotely log in while testing, or you may have to forcibly reboot if your code has a bug). On windows or OSX the effectiveness might be a little less.
I would try with pygame, because it can lock mouse to itself and thus keep all input to itself, but i wouldn't call this secure without much testing, ctr-alt-del probably escape it, can't try on windows right now.
(not very different of Bryan Oakley's answer, except with pygame)
Following the example at http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.python.general/541418, I've succeeded in creating a callable class for balloon tooltips, but the greater complexities of that code elude me when it comes to customization. I browsed a bit of how it works through msdn, but being a novice at more windows-esque languagues like c and vb, etc. I was unable to make much sense of it.
So I ask ye snakely academics:
Things I'd like to be able to do with that code aside from the standard icon, title, text:
Perform actions based on clicking the tooltip
Modify the tooltip that pops up over the icon in the system tray after loading it (to reflect changing values)
Multiple lines? (Not sure if this can even be done, really)
More information on other things you could do in a windows 7 environment versus XP (which seems to be what this was written for).
Ideally I'd get some sort of return value or some semblance of an event when the tooltip is clicked so that I could run some code, but currently I'm importing that code as a module and calling at various times, so I'm not sure how to handle clicks outside of the popup code itself...
Information on handling these things with python seems quite scarce. Thanks in advance.
Perform actions based on clicking the tooltip
Whats the problem OnTaskbarNotify? Hock yourself in there.
Modify the tooltip that pops up over the icon in the system tray after loading it (to reflect changing values)
Probably not, I am not sure about the WinAPI here. I haven't seen it in the wild, so...
Multiple lines? (Not sure if this can even be done, really)
With most WinAPI, just insert a \n in the string.
More information on other things you could do in a windows 7 environment versus XP (which seems to be what this was written for).
LOTS... But that is a bit vague... It depends what your needs are. But for kol feturez you need to google on your own...
On Linux and Unix systems I use the notify-send OS already implemented system.
import os
os.system('notify-send "'+title+'" "'+message+'")
Maybe in Windows there is some API32 for this.
Check this https://gist.github.com/wontoncc/1808234
I am attempting to create my first OS-level GUI using wxPython. I have the book wxPython in Action and have looked at the code demos. I have no experience with event-driven programming (aside from some Javascript), sizers, and all of the typical GUI elements. The book is organized a little strangely and assumes I know far more about OS GUI programming than I actually do. I'm fairly recent to object-oriented programming, as well. I'm aware that I am clearly out of my depth.
My application, on the GUI side, is simple: mostly a set of reminder screens ("Turn on the scanner," "Turn on the printer," etc) and background actions in Python either in the filesystem or from hitting a web service, but it is just complex enough that the Wizard class does not quite seem to cover it. I have to change the names on the "Back" and "Next" buttons, disable them at times, and so forth.
What is the standard process for an application such as mine?
1) Create a single wxFrame, then put all of my wxPanels inside of it, hiding all but one, then performing a sequence of hides and shows as the "Next" button (or the current equivalent) are triggered?
2) Create multiple wxFrames, with one wxPanel in each, then switch between them?
3) Some non-obvious fashion of changing the names of the buttons in wxWizard and disabling them?
4) Something I have not anticipated in the three categories above.
I don't have a good understanding of your application, but trying to force wxWizard to suit your needs sounds like a bad idea.
I suggest checking out the Demos available from the wxPython website. Go through each demo and I bet you'll find one that suits your needs.
I've personally never used wxWizard as I find it too cumbersome. Instead, I create a sequence of dialogs that do what I need.