Hi everyone, we just released the new version of our GUI automation tool with the improved API: http://www.getautoma.com/blog/Automa-1-5-1-window-switching. Thank you again for your help.
Best regards, Michael On Monday, March 25, 2013 8:29:23 PM UTC+1, Michael Herrmann wrote: > Hello everyone, > > > > my name is Michael, I'm the lead developer of a Python GUI automation library > for Windows called Automa: http://www.getautoma.com. We want to add some > features to our library but are unsure how to best expose them via our API. > It would be extremely helpful for us if you could let us know which API > design feels "right" to you. > > > > Our API already offers very simple commands for automating the GUI of a > Windows computer. For example: > > > > from automa.api import * > > start("Notepad") > > write("Hello World!") > > press(CTRL + 's') > > write("test.txt", into="File name") > > click("Save") > > click("Close") > > > > When you execute this script, Automa starts Notepad and simulates key > strokes, mouse movements and clicks to perform the required commands. At the > moment, each action is performed in the currently active window. > > > > We do not (yet) have a functionality that allows you to explicitly switch to > a specific window. Such a functionality would for instance make it possible > to open two Notepad windows using the start(...) command, and copy text > between them. > > > > One API design would be to have our start(...) function return a "Window" > (say) object, whose methods allow you to do the same operations as the global > functions write(...), press(...), click(...) etc., but in the respective > window. In this design, the example of operating two Notepad windows could be > written as > > > > notepad_1 = start("Notepad") > > notepad_2 = start("Notepad") > > notepad_1.write("Hello World!") > > notepad_1.press(CTRL + 'a', CTRL + 'c') > > notepad_2.press(CTRL + 'v') > > > > The problem with this design is that it effectively duplicates our API: We > want to keep our "global" functions because they are so easy to read. If we > add methods to a new "Window" class that do more or less the same, we feel > that we are violating Python's principle that "There should be one - and > preferably only one - obvious way to do it." > > > > An alternative design would be to make the window switching an explicit > action. One way of doing this would be to add a new global function, say > "switch_to" or "activate", that takes a single parameter that identifies the > window to be switched to. We could still have start(...) return a Window > object, that could then be passed to our function: > > > > notepad_1 = start("Notepad") > > notepad_2 = start("Notepad") > > switch_to(notepad_1) > > write("Hello World!") > > press(CTRL + 'a', CTRL + 'c') > > switch_to(notepad_2) > > press(CTRL + 'v') > > > > Maybe our Window objects could also be used as context managers: > > > > notepad_1 = start("Notepad") > > notepad_2 = start("Notepad") > > with notepad_1: > > write("Hello World!") > > press(CTRL + 'a', CTRL + 'c') > > with notepad_2: > > press(CTRL + 'v') > > > > As a final idea, switching could also be done as a method of the Window class: > > > > notepad_1 = start("Notepad") > > notepad_2 = start("Notepad") > > notepad_1.activate() > > write("Hello World!") > > press(CTRL + 'a', CTRL + 'c') > > notepad_2.activate() > > press(CTRL + 'v') > > > > It would be extremely helpful for us if you could let me know which way of > using the API you would prefer. If you opt for an explicit version, how would > you call the respective method? "activate" / "switch_to" / "focus" or > something else? > > > > Thank you so much! > > > > Best wishes, > > Michael -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
