On March 21, 2021 1:27:20 AM UTC, Chris Spencer via gnome-list
<gnome-list@gnome.org> wrote:
>Hi,
>
>Is there any way to programmatically lookup the position of widgets
>displayed in the Gnome top panel, as well as UI elements within those
>widgets?
>
>I'm trying to build a UI test automation framework for some Gnome Shell
>panel widgets. I'd like to write a script that can click on a panel
>widget, confirm a popup appears, verify certain text exists in the
>popup, etc.
>
>I maintain a Gnome Shell extension, and it's become immensely
>expensive, not to develop, but to test and maintain. There are so many
>different distros with varying incompatible Gnome versions, and testing
>them all by hand is virtually impossible. Fixing a bug for one Gnome
>version introduces a bug in another version. It's gotten to the point
>where I almost have to abandon the project because it's too difficult
>to do basic integration and regression testing on Gnome, but I really
>want to find a solution.
>
>Gnome is one of the most widely used desktop environments in the world,
>so I find it hard to believe no one else has encountered this problem
>befpre.
>
>I've found some tools like xdotool and pyautogui for programmatically
>clicking elements. However, without knowing exactly where widgets are
>rendered, the script would be clicking blind. And even if I could
>reliably click a location, those tools don't let me read DOM values for
>the UI elements at that location.
>
>I've also found some tools like xwininfo that can query some window
>positions and do a little introspection, but this seems specific to X
>and treats the entire top panel as one huge window, with no ability to
>introspect any of the widgets inside of it.
>
>I had hoped the Dogtail project might be helpful in this regard, but it
>seems to be dead with virtually no documentation. I was able to build
>it, but I couldn't find any ability within it to introspect the top
>panel.
>
>Are there any other tools or libraries I could potentially use? Does
>anyone have any alternate suggestions for how I might automate Gnome UI
>testing?
>
>Regards,
>Chris
Chris, I might be talking way over my head, and I haven't had my first cup of
coffee yet, but speaking just with a little programming experience behind me,
I'm guessing that there must be a shared library or two which has the code that
creates the widgets which are displayed in the top panel. Some code could be
added to that Library which logs that particular event when the widget is
created in the top panel, or moved within that top panel, or deleted from it.
That logging ability would not need to be existent in that shared library for
the whole distro, you just need to have it on your own machine for its testbed
environment.
I hope this little project turns out to be a lot more fun than I've made it
sound. :)
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