Use python to execute a windows program

[Doran, Harold]

I am working with this now. I'm toying with the examples to test out a
few things and learn how this works. I've made some modifications such
that I have the following working (below). This does nothing more than
open a program.

I have commented out the portion

#app.AM.MenuSelect("File->Open Database")

When it is uncommented, the program fails. However, when I tinker with
this MenuSelect() for, say, Notepad, this presents no problem and
behaves as expected. For example, the following works with notepad:

app.Notepad.MenuSelect("Help->Help Topics")

At the risk of sounding too silly, how do I know what to place after
app.??.MenuSelect? I've tried this with a few programs and the name I
use in place of ?? Doesn't seem to work.




import time
import sys

try:
    from pywinauto import application
except ImportError:
    import os.path
    pywinauto_path = os.path.abspath(__file__)
    pywinauto_path = os.path.split(os.path.split(pywinauto_path)[0])[0]
    import sys
    sys.path.append(pywinauto_path)
    from pywinauto import application


def AM():

    app = application.Application()

    try:
        app.start_(   # connect_(path =
            ur"C:\Program Files\American Institutes for
Research\AMBeta\AM.exe")
    except application.ProcessNotFoundError:
        print "You must first start Windows Media "\
            "Player before running this script"
        sys.exit()

     #app.AM.MenuSelect("File->Open Database")
     
    
def Main():
    start = time.time()

    AM()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    Main() 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: simon.brunning at gmail.com 
> [mailto:simon.brunning at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Simon Brunning
> Sent: Friday, September 11, 2009 11:02 AM
> To: Doran, Harold
> Cc: python-list at python.org
> Subject: Re: Use python to execute a windows program
> 
> 2009/9/11 Doran, Harold <HDoran at air.org>:
> > The way we do this now is a person sits in front of their 
> machine and 
> > proceeds as follows:
> >
> > 1) Open windows program
> > 2) Click file -> open which opens a dialog box
> > 3) Locate the file (which is a text file) click on it and let the 
> > program run.
> 
> It might very well be possible, depending upon how the 
> program you want to automate has been written.
> 
> First, make sure, absolutely sure, that's there's no "proper"
> automation option available - a command line version, COM 
> automation, that kind of thing. These approaches are very 
> much easier than GUI automation.
> 
> If none of these options are available, 
> <http://pywinauto.openqa.org/> is probably what you need.
> 
> --
> Cheers,
> Simon B.
>