Using Windows UI Automation via CPython/pywin32?

Question

Based on a question I read and responded to on Reddit, I've been investigating using the relatively new Windows UI Automation framework via Python (and pywin32) to query custom widgets inside a Google Chrome window. UISpy shows me the control I'm interested in, but the naming conventions and lack of window classes make me believe the UI Automation framework is the only way to access it. I was able to get as far as generating a COM stub for the UI Automation library via PythonWin and the Makepy utility, but couldn't actually instantiate the COM object. I don't have a lot of experience with COM, outside of following along in Mark Hammond's "Python Programming on Win32" to drive Excel via COM with Python. I found an article describing how to instantiate the COM object from C/C++ but I wasn't able to get much from it.

I think I can follow along with the API documentation if I can just figure out how to instantiate the object.

Bill Agee · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-20 19:10:34Z

3

You can use the awesome comtypes package to easily use the IUIAutomation COM interface from CPython scripts.

Here's a very simple demo I wrote:

https://github.com/billagee/test-polyglot/blob/master/printDesktopUiaElementName/ms-ui-automation-com-api/python/comtypes/print_desktop_uia_element_name.py

answered Nov 20, 2013 at 19:10

Bill Agee

3,65622 silver badges17 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

Eric Brown · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-20 00:35:15Z

1

Try win32com.client.gencache, particularly GetModuleForCLSID(["e22ad333-b25f-460c-83d0-0581107395c9") - the clsid for the Win32 implementation of IUIAutomation.

answered Nov 20, 2013 at 0:35

Eric Brown

14k7 gold badges34 silver badges74 bronze badges

1 Comment

technomalogical Over a year ago

This seems like it's on the right track, but there are a couple problems with your code. First, there's an open bracket for a list on the left side and none on the right. I tried without it and with a closing bracket and the function returned None. Next, I didn't specify, but I'm on Windows 7. This CLSID is for the Windows 8 version. I looked in the docs and found the CLSID for the older version, but when I tried the same statement I still got None back from the function.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Using Windows UI Automation via CPython/pywin32?

2 Answers 2

Comments

1 Comment

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

Comments

1 Comment

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related