Pywinauto
pywinauto is an open source Python library for automating desktop GUI applications on Windows. It allows you to control and interact with windows and controls programmatically, useful for GUI testing and automation.
python
automation
testing
gui
Pywinauto: Open Source Python Library for Windows Automation
Pywinauto is an open source Python library for automating desktop GUI applications on Windows. It allows you to control and interact with windows and controls programmatically, useful for GUI testing and automation.
What is Pywinauto?
Pywinauto is an open source Python library for automating and testing GUI applications on Windows. It provides a robust set of methods to access, identify, and interact with application windows, controls, and menus. Some key features of pywinauto include:
- Locating windows and controls by title, text content, Control ID, and other properties
- Simulating mouse and keyboard input
- Getting and setting control properties and states
- Support for native and MFC windows applications
- Image-based localization using computer vision
- Waiting for windows and controls to appear or enter given states
Pywinauto can be used for GUI test automation, programmatically driving desktop applications during testing, automating complex user workflows, integration testing, and more. It runs on Python 3.6+ and works with both classic Windows apps as well as UWP apps. Pywinauto has an active open source community contributing to its development.
Pywinauto Features
Features
- Automate desktop GUI applications on Windows
- Control applications by sending mouse and keyboard actions
- Inspect UI elements and read their properties and states
- Support for many common UI frameworks like MFC, WinForms, WPF, Qt
- Identify UI elements via multiple attributes like name, type, value etc
- Interact with common controls like buttons, comboboxes, treeview etc
- Integration with other test frameworks like unittest, pytest etc
Pricing
- Open Source
Pros
Open source and free to use
Cross-platform support for Windows and Linux
Active development and support community
Supports Python 2.7 and 3.x
Integrates well with CI/CD pipelines
Good documentation and examples
Cons
Only works on Windows desktop applications
Limited support for UWP and web applications
Steep learning curve
Brittle locators can break with UI changes
Does not support image-based testing
Official Links
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