Automation of Windows app?

[Grant Edwards]

[I thought I'd seen a discussion of this recently, but I can't seem to
find the right keyword.]

I need to automate operation of a Windows application.  It's a
conformance test app from a standards organizaiton, and it's
_stunningly_ bad.  You have to sit it front of it like some sort of
brainless slave and click a button every 10-20 minutes.

At a minimum, I'd like to click the "run" button on a certain dialog
when it pops up so I can at least run one test multiple times.  It
would also be nice to be able to menu selections and enter data in
dialogs so that I can run multiple tests without human intervention.

I'm normally a Linux and embedded developer, but I have ActiveState
Python installed, and am hoping I can write some sort of Python
program to drive this awful Windows app...

<rant>
There's no way to automate or script anything in this application, and
even the simplest features seem to be broken.  For example, there a
spot where you can enter how many times a test is to run.  But after
each run, a dialog box pops up and you have to click "run" again.
It's one of those programs that can only survive in such a state of
brokenness because there's a "standards" organization that forces you
to buy it and use it (I'm talking about _you_ ODVA).
</rant>

-- 
Grant Edwards               grant.b.edwards        Yow! Boys, you have ALL
                                  at               been selected to LEAVE th'
                              gmail.com            PLANET in 15 minutes!!