pywinauto 0.2.1 released - lots of new functionality

[Mark Mc Mahon]

Hi,

The 0.2.1 release of pywinauto is now available.

pywinauto is a set of open-source (LGPL) modules for using Python as a GUI
automation 'driver' for Windows NT based Operating Systems (NT/W2K/XP).

SourceForge project page:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pywinauto

Download from SourceForge
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=157379


Here is the list of changes:
0.2.1 Small Release number - big changes
------------------------------------------------
17-Feb-2006

    * Quick release to get many changes out there - but this release has
      been less tested then I would like for a 0.3.0 release.

    * Allow access to non text controls using the closest Text control.
      This closest text control will normally be the static/label associated
      with the control. For example in Notepad, Format->Font dialog, the 1st
      combobox can be refered to as "FontComboBox" rather than "ComboBox1"

    * Added a new control wrapper - ``PopupMenuWrapper`` for context menu's
      You can now work easily with context menu's
      e.g. ::

         app.Notepad.Edit.RightClick()
         # need to use MenuClick rather then MenuSelect
         app.PopupMenu.MenuClick("Select All")
         app.Notepad.Edit.RightClick()
         app.PopupMenu.MenuClick("Copy")

      I could think of merging the ``RightClick()`` and ``MenuSelect()``
      into one method ``ContextMenuSelect()`` if that makes sense to most
      people.

    * Added Support for Up-Down controls

    * Not all top level windows now have a FriendlyClassName of "Dialog".
      I changed this because it made it hard to get windows of a particular
      class. For example the main Notepad window has a class name of "Notepad".

      This was primarily implemented due to work I did getting the System Tray.

    * Renamed ``StatusBarWrapper.PartWidths()`` to ``PartRightEdges()`` as this
      is more correct for what it returns.

    * Changed HwndWrapper.Text() and SetText() to WindowText() and
      SetWindowText() respectively to try and make it clearer that it is
      the text returned by GetWindowText and not the text that is visible
      on the control. This change also suggested that EditWrapper.SetText()
      be changed to SetEditText() (though this is not a hard requirement
      EditWrapper.SetText() still exists - but may be deprecated.

    * Added ClickInput, DoubleClickInput, RightClickInput, PressMouseInput
      ReleaseMouseInput to HwndWrapper - these use SendInput rather then
      WM_LBUTTONDOWN, WM_RBUTTONUP, etc used by Click, DoubleClick etc.

      I also added a MenuClick method that allows you to click on menu
      items. This means you can now 'physically' drop menus down.

    * Some further working with tooltips that need to be cleaned up.

    * Fixed a bug where coordinates passed to any of the Click operations had
      the X and Y coordinates swapped.

    * Added new MenuItem and Menu classes that are to the most part hidden
      but you can get a menu item by doing ::

        app.Notepad.MenuItem("View")
	    app.Notepad.MenuItem("View->Status Bar")
	
	  MenuItems have various actions so for example you can use
	  ``MenuItem.IsChecked()`` to check if the menu item is checked.
	  Among other methods there are ``Click()`` and ``Enabled()``.

    * Modified the 'best match' algorithm for finding controls.
      It now searches a couple of times, and tries to find the best
      fit for the text passed to it. The idea here is to make it more
      "Select what I want - not that other thing that looks a bit like
      what I want!". It is possible this change could mean you need to
      use new identifiers in scripts - but in general very little modification
      should be necessary.

      There was also a change to the algorithm that looked for the closest
      text control. It missed some obvious controls in the previous
      implementation. It also had a bug for controls above the control
      rather than to the left.

    * Added a new example scripts SaveFromInternetExplorer.py and
      SaveFromFirefox.py which show automating downloading of a page
      from either of these browsers.

    * Added yet more unit tests, there are now a total of 134 tests.


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Thanks
 Mark

--------------------------------------------
Mark Mc Mahon
Manchester, NH 03110, USA

<P><A HREF="http://sourceforge.net/projects/pywinauto">pywinauto 0.2.1</A>
Simple Windows GUI automation with Python. (17-Feb-06)