While looking for more ways to automate my computer using python, I found this video from PyBay2016 very informative. Presented by Al Sweigart, this video is a no nonsense look on how to get started with some basic automation.
Selenium
Selenium is used in testing web apps; however, it can also be used to automate any online activity. His selenium example looks like the following:
from selenium import webdriver
browser = webdriver.Firefox()
brower.get('theurl.com’)
element = browser.find_element_by_css_selector(the css selector)
element.text
element.click()
browser.quit()
This example opens a web browser and navigates to a web page. From there, it finds a specific element, grabs the text and then clicks on that element. Selenium is useful because it can handle the minutiae that comes with navigating the web.
Starting from the top, a simple import selenium does not work, the key is to import the web driver from selenium. Lines 2 and 3 start a browser on screen and navigates to the inputted URL.
Line 4 is where the magic happens. Instead of trying to follow the CSS chain, I can inspect an element on screen 1, and then copy the selector path directly from the developer tools.
Other useful methods can be used to send keys, submit, and refresh a web page.
PyAutoGUI
PyAutoGUI is a package that is more useful with automating tasks on screen.2 This module can be installed by using pip which looks like the following: pip install pyautogui.
In order to be useful, PyAutoGUI needs the pixel coordinates of where to click. To solve this problem, there is a useful function called displayMousePosition(). By running this function, the program will give a real time position for where the mouse is on the screen. This is a great way to plan out where the mouse needs to be in order to click the desired targets.
In addition, there’s several other useful functions: click(), typewrite(), hotkey('ctrl','o') are three of the most useful. Typewrite() is used to send text to the active program. moveTo() and moveRel() will move the cursor to a specific point or in relation to where it is currently. Finally, there’s a locateOnScreen() method to match a screenshot with something on screen.
The documentation online is well written and contains all of the methods that can be implemented with PyAutoGUI
Conclusion
Automation is clearly the area where I am slacking the most. These tools have great potential to simplify the daily computing process and I look forward to trying them.