White Library tutorial for windows application automation

 Quick overview

1. Pr-requisites
2. Reference to the keywords
3. Basic script
4. Conclusion

Pr-requisites:

1. Python
2. Robot framework 
3. White library 

Make sure you have below mentioned are already installed on your system.

Reference to the keywords 

If you need to know how to use robot framework - check this blog

White Library keywords - click here

How to find element locators so we can use them in this automation

Basic script

*** Settings ***
Documentation                   Notepad automation using WhiteLibrary.
Library                         WhiteLibrary

*** Variables ***
${APPLICATION_LOCATION}         C:/Windows/notepad.exe

*** Test Cases ***
Open Notepad And Create A File
    Launch Application      	${APPLICATION_LOCATION}
    Sleep                       3s     #wait time to notepad launch
    Attach Window              	Untitled - Notepad
    Input Text To Textbox       text=Text Editor	This is a sample text file
    Click Item                  text=File
    Wait Until Item Exists      text=Save    	5s
    Click Item                  text=Save
    Sleep     	              	3s
    @{windows}=	             	Get Application Windows
    Attach Window               ${windows[1]}
    Input Text To Textbox       text=File name:        temp.txt
    Click Button	        text=Save
    Close Application

Code explanation

• Firstly we have imported the White Library so that we can refer the keywords from the it.
• Then we have declared the exe path of the application we want to automate, in this case it's path of the notepad exe.
• Then we start with the actual test where there are commands in the pattern of keyword and the parameter for the keyword to perform the test action.
• Attach window is a keyword of the type context, and is very important in "windows application" automation. We need to attach any window that is getting opened during our test.
• We can only access the window elements if we have attached the window to the context(Attach window keyword does it for us.)
• I think all other keywords are self explanatory like Click Item, Input text to the textbox.
• To find out which window we can attach there is one keyword "Get Application Windows", when a new window open is expected within the same application, we can use this keyword and it will return a list of windows available.
• I have used window index to attach it to the context ex. ${windows[1]}, so here the index of the window I want to attach is 1, which is Save As window. 0th window is Untitled-Notepad.
• You can find the order of the windows in the text execution report at the line @{windows}= Get Application Windows. I have attached the screenshot of the report, and you can see the first window and second window names here.