PyWinCtl 0.0.12

A cross-platform module to control and obtain GUI information on application's windows.

First off, my most sincere thanks and acknowledgement to macdeport (https://github.com/macdeport) and holychowders (https://github.com/holychowders) for their help and moral boost.

PyWinCtl

This is a fork from asweigart's PyGetWindow module (https://github.com/asweigart/PyGetWindow), intended to obtain GUI information on and control application's windows.

This fork adds Linux and macOS experimental support to the MS Windows-only original module, in the hope others can use it, test it or contribute

Window Features

All these functions are available at the moment, in all three platforms (Windows, Linux and macOS):

General, independent functions:	Window class methods:	Window class properties:
getActiveWindow	close	title
getActiveWindowTitle	minimize	isMinimized
getAllWindows	maximize	isMaximized
getAllTitles	restore	isActive
getWindowsWithTitle	hide	isVisible
getWindowsAt	show
cursor (mouse position)	activate
resolution (screen size)	resize / resizeRel
	resizeTo
	move / moveRel
	moveTo
	alwaysOnTop
	alwaysOnBottom
	lowerWindow
	raiseWindow
	sendBehind

IMPORTANT macOS NOTICE:

macOS doesn't "like" controlling windows from other apps, so there are two separate classes you can use:

• To control your own application's windows: MacOSNSWindow() is based on NSWindow Objects (you have to pass the NSApp() Object reference).
• To control other applications' windows: MacOSWindow() is based on Apple Script, so it is slower and, in some cases, tricky (uses window name as reference), but it's working fine in most cases. You will likely need to grant permissions on Settings->Security&Privacy->Accessibility.

Menu Features

Available in: MS-Windows and macOS Apple Script version (MacOSWindow() class)

Menu info and control functions (from asweigart's original ideas), accessible through 'menu' submodule. E.g.:

subprocess.Popen('notepad')
windows = pywinctl.getWindowsWithTitle('Untitled - Notepad')
if windows:
    win = windows[0]
    menu = win.menu.getMenu()
    ret = win.menu.clickMenuItem(["File", "Exit"])   # Exit program
    if not ret:
        print("Option not found")
else:
    print("Window not found")

Menu dictionary (returned by getMenu() method) will likely contain all you may need to handle application menu:

Key:            item title
Values:
  "parent":     parent sub-menu handle
  "hSubMenu":   item handle (!= 0 for sub-menu items only)
  "wID":        item ID (required for other actions, e.g. clickMenuItem())
  "rect":       Rect struct of the menu item. (Windows: It is relative to window position, so it won't likely change if window is moved or resized)
  "item_info":  [Optional] Python dictionary (macOS) / MENUITEMINFO struct (Windows)
  "shortcut":   shortcut to menu item, if any (macOS: only if item_info is included)
  "entries":    sub-items within the sub-menu (if any)

Functions included in this subclass:

Menu sub-module functions:
getMenu
getMenuInfo
getMenuItemCount
getMenuItemInfo
getMenuItemRect
clickMenuItem

Note not all windows/applications will have a menu accessible by these methods.

INSTALL

To install this module on your system, you can use pip:

python3 -m pip install pywinctl

Alternatively, you can download the wheel file (.whl) located in "dist" folder, and run this (don't forget to replace 'x.x.xx' with proper version number):

python3 -m pip install PyWinCtl-x.x.xx-py3-none-any.whl

You may want to add '--force-reinstall' option to be sure you are installing the right dependencies version.

Then, you can use it on your own projects just importing it:

import pywinctl

USING THIS CODE

If you want to use this code or contribute, you can either:

• Create a fork of this repository, or
• Download the repository, uncompress, and open it on your IDE of choice (e.g. PyCharm)

Be sure you install all dependencies described on "docs/requirements.txt" by using pip

In case you have any issues, comments or suggestions, do not hesitate to open an issue, or contact me ([e-mail])

TEST

To test this module on your own system, cd to "tests" folder and run:

pytest -vv test_pywinctl.py

or, in case you get an import error, try this:

python3 -m pytest -vv test_pywinctl.py

MacOSNSWindow class and methods can be tested by running this, also on "tests" folder:

python3 test_MacNSWindow.py