Interfacing GUI applications..?

[Cameron Laird]

In article <DBBCE6C2082E53B1.615203542B7E40FA.9FA5C28776C8881D at lp.airnews.net>,
I muddied matters by mumbling:
>In article <3B18032E.21AF631E at pfortin.com>,
>Pierre Fortin  <pfortin at pfortin.com> wrote:
>>Hi,
>>
>>I've been searching for a couple of days now and must resort asking for help...
>>
>>Does anyone know if it's possible to interface to a GUI application via a Python
>>script?  I'm writing an application and would like to invoke Adobe's AcroRead
>>(on Linux) and feed data to a "fill-in" PDF file.
>>
>>The minimum requirement is to make AcroRead think it's coming from the
>>keyboard.  Extra points for mouse events (or shortcuts, though not all menus
>>items have shortcuts).
>			.
>			.
>			.
>Is this AcroRead operating under Windows?  If so,
>I think it will be useful to sharpen your question
>to, "Does anyone know whether AcroRead is a COM
>server?"  That question, incidentally, has nothing
>to do with Python, and little to do with GUIs; the
>folks in comp.text.pdf will more likely be of help
>with that.
>
>If you're operating under Windows (I speculate you
>are), and if AcroRead is a COM server (I anticipate
>that it is), then you're in luck; Python is a GREAT
>language for COM scripting.
>
>If not ... we'll try something else.
>
>Incidentally, ReportLab might interest you.  'Any-
>one out there have any user reports on ReportLab?
>I've cobbled together some of my own PDF manipula-
>tions, but I'll happily discard all of them for a
>well-done package.
			.
			.
			.
I apologize to everyone whom I confused by failing to notice
Mr. Fortin's clear description of his use of Linux.  I'm ad-
justing my quality-control system.

Part of the conversation has been private.  I'll summarize:

No one believes (Linux) AcroRead is scriptable, although I
continue to fantasize someone will inform us to the contrary.

Usually what people mean when they ask for something like
this is a way to synthesize their own .PDF documents, based
on templates already at hand.  I'm considering writing an
article or two on the subject.  I'll put pointers at <URL:
http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/comp.text.pdf/PDF.html >.

Can Python "just" script GUI stuff, the way it does command-
line applications?  In general, no; X's model resists that
quite thoroughly, although those truly dedicated to the task
will like Android <URL:
http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/comp.windows.misc/Android.html >.
Applications built with specific toolkits--Tk, GTK+, ...--often
admit more convenient scripting, when adequate documentation
is also available.
-- 

Cameron Laird <claird at NeoSoft.com>
Business:  http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal:  http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html