Pysikuli

This is a fast cross-platform python module for gui automation

Table Of Content

• Documentation
• Introduction
• Quickstart
• Small Example
• How reach the max speed
• Installation
• VS Code add-ons

Documentation

Full documentation and some tutorials is available here: Documentation

Introduction

Pysikuli initially inspired by Sikuli Project and secondly by python automation tools such as pyautogui and the quick image search in python-imagesearch library. So if you already know about Sikuli or pyautogui, but want to speed up your scripts to the max, you're in the right place.

Pysikuli helps to automate almost every user actions in Windows, Linux and MacOS.

In short, Pysikuli can :

• Search for an image on the entire screen as well as on a specific part of the screen (Region)
• Emulate user acivity via Keyboard and Mouse
• Make some manipulation with app's windows, e.g. move, maximize or close
• Use clipboard
• Call popup
• Delete files

Quickstart

Once the installation is complete, import the main classes into your project:

import pysikuli as sik
from pysikuli import Key, Button, Region, config

For keyboard presses use:

tap(), write() or hotkey()

sik.tap(Key.backspace)
sik.write("pysikuli")
sik.hotkey(Key.ctrl, Key.shift, Key.esc)

For mouse movement use:

click(), mouseMove() or scroll()

sik.mouseMove((100,100))
sik.click(button=Button.left)
sik.scroll(duration=0.5, horizontal_speed=0.1, vertical_speed=0.1)
sik.dragDrop(destination_loc=(200, 200), start_location=(100, 100), speed=1)

Image searching:

sik.find(image="/some_path", max_search_time=5)
sik.exist(image="/path_to_image")
sik.wait(image="/path_to_image")
sik.existAny()

The search functions will return a Match object (if found successfully), where you can get the center coordinates, set offset, show found image or region (more details in the Documentation). Also, you can pass an image pattern to almost every mouse-related function, instead of Location.

Clipboard management:

sik.copyToClip("test")
text = sik.pasteFromClip()
sik.paste("paste text directly in active window")

Other useful functions:

sik.deleteFile("/file/path")
sik.popupAlert(text="some popup breakpoint in your script", title="alert")
sik.cleanupPics(pics_folder_path="/pics")
sik.activateWindow("Google Chrome")
sik.getWindowRegion("Google Chrome")

Location

Location is a tuple with 2 values - X and Y, which represent posistion of one pixel on the screen. The X axis is directed from left side to right, as usual, but The Y is axis directed from top to bottom.

For example Location with value (0, 0), is located in the left top corner of the screen, and Location with (1920, 1080) value is located in the right bottom corner of the Full HD screen.

Region

Region (rectangular pixel area on a screen) does not know anything about it’s visual content. It only knows the position on the screen and its dimension.

Region let to determine a specific screen are, where you want to find some GUI elements. It increase search speed and let you avoid missfinding similiar objects. Region is defined by top left and right bottom corner points of the area. (x1, y1, x2, y2)

(0,0)               (960,0)              (1920,0)
  +--------------------+---------------------+
  |                    |                     |
  |                    |                     |
  |                    |                     |
  |                    |                     |
  |--------------------+                     |
  |                 (960,540)                |
  |                                          |
  |                                          |
  |                                          | 
  +------------------------------------------+
(0, 1080)                               (1920,1080)

For example how you can determine top left quarter of the Full HD screen:

#                        (x1, y1, x2, y2)   
top_left_quarter = Region(0, 0, 960, 540)

And use all search functions:

top_left_quarter.find(image="/some_path/to_image")
top_left_quarter.wait(image="/some_path/to_image")

Capture Region and Location

You can use getLocation() which tracks the mouse position and after holding the mouse in the same spot for 1.5 seconds (by default) you will get the Location printed in the terminal and already copied to your clipboard. getRegion() works in the same way, but uses 2 spots to define the region.

To have quick and easy access to the getRegion() and getLocation() functions, I would recommend creating two .py files with the same names and put in the code below:

getRegion.py:

from pysikuli import getRegion

if __name__ == "__main__":
    getRegion()

getLocation.py:

from pysikuli import getLocation

if __name__ == "__main__":
    getLocation()

After that, all you have to do is run one of these .py files and you will get Region or Location

Small Example

The code below runs the calculator, presses 2 + 2 and gets the result

import pysikuli as sik

from pysikuli import Region, Key, Button

if __name__ == "__main__":

    sik.config.MOUSE_SPEED = 2

    pic_2 = "pics/pic_2.png"
    pic_plus = "pics/pic_plus.png"
    pic_equal = "pics/pic_equal.png"

    sik.tap(Key.win), sik.sleep(0.02)
    sik.paste("calculator"), sik.sleep(0.3)
    sik.tap(Key.enter)

    sik.click(pic_2, precision=0.9)
    sik.click(pic_plus)
    sik.click(pic_2, precision=0.9)
    sik.click(pic_equal)

How reach the max speed?

Pysikuli has config variable, which one you can import in this way:

from pysikuli import config

Below is a list of parameters that can impact on search time:

• config.COMPRESSION_RATIO: default: 2 - resize image, e.g. if this variable was set to 2, it means that pics become 4 time smaller (height / 2) and (width / 2). Increase search speed almost double, but after the value 4 the speed increases slightly, but accuracy is lost significantly.
• config.GRAYSCALE: default: True - it turn on all pics to grayscale. Increase search speed by ~30%.
• config.MIN_SLEEP_TIME: default: 0.02 - is used as a constant minimum delay in some functions on macOS, changing this value may affect the correctness of the OS response.

Other ways to speed up:

• config.MOUSE_SPEED: default: 1, it is abstract measure and ≈ 1000 px per second. For instant move set to 1000 or 10000.
• use Regions to narrow the search area of your patterns

Installation

pip install pysikuli

External dependencies

External dependencies mostly belong to the sounddevice module, which is used to user-friendly capture Region or Location. However, pysikuli can work normally without them.

Windows:

sounddevice dependence:

• Microsoft C++ build tools

Linux:

• sounddevice dependence:

  sudo apt install libportaudio2
  

  Also, pysikuli will try to install this package on its own the first time you run it

MacOS:

• You need to enable Accessibility and Screen capture permissions to terminal or python itself.
• brew install python-tk if you want to use popup windows

VS Code add-ons

I would also recommend installing these VS Code's add-ons:

• Paste Image, for pasting screenshots directly in the code from clipboard. You can also set up a specific folder to store your pics.
• Image preview, for preview captured photos
• luna-paint, useful tool for fast cropping captured images inside VS Code

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