TagUI for Python

Python package for digital process automation (RPA).

TagUI-for-Python

To install this Python package for digital process automation (also known as RPA) -

pip install tagui

To use TagUI for Python in Jupyter notebook, Python script or interactive shell -

import tagui as t

To deploy in environments without internet access, join the discussion here -

t.init(); t.url('https://github.com/tebelorg/TagUI-Python/issues/36')

Use Cases

TagUI for Python's simple, expressive and powerful API makes digital process automation fun and easy!

WEB AUTOMATION

t.init()
t.url('https://www.google.com')
t.type('q', 'decentralization[enter]')
t.snap('page', 'results.png')
t.close()

VISUAL AUTOMATION

t.init(visual_automation = True)
t.dclick('outlook_icon.png')
t.click('new_mail.png')
...
t.type('message_box.png', 'message')
t.click('send_button.png')
t.close()

OCR AUTOMATION

t.init(visual_automation = True)
t.echo(t.read('pdf_window.png'))
t.echo(t.read('image_preview.png'))
t.hover('anchor_element.png')
t.echo(t.read(t.mouse_x(), t.mouse_y(), t.mouse_x() + 400, t.mouse_y() + 200))
t.close()

KEYBOARD AUTOMATION

t.init(visual_automation = True, chrome_browser = False)
t.keyboard('[cmd][space]')
t.keyboard('safari[enter]')
t.keyboard('[cmd]t')
t.keyboard('avengers[enter]')
t.wait(2.5)
t.snap('page.png', 'results.png')
t.close()

MOUSE AUTOMATION

t.init(visual_automation = True)
t.type(600, 300, 'open source')
t.click(900, 300)
t.snap('page.bmp', 'results.bmp')
t.hover('button_to_drag.bmp')
t.mouse('down')
t.hover(t.mouse_x() + 300, t.mouse_y())
t.mouse('up')
t.close()

API Reference

Check out sample Python script and RedMart groceries example.

  • For web automation, web element identifier can be XPath selector, CSS selector or the following attributes - id, name, class, title, aria-label, text(), href (in decreasing order of priority). There is automatic waiting for an element to appear before timeout happens, and error is returned that the element cannot be found. To change the default timeout of 10 seconds, use timeout() function.

  • An element identifier can also be a .png or .bmp image snapshot representing the UI element (can be on desktop applications or web browser). x, y coordinates of elements on the screen work as well. Transparency (0% opacity) is supported in .png images, for eg using an image of an UI element with transparent background to enable clicking on an UI element that appears on different backgrounds on different occasions.

  • A further example is an image of the window or frame (PDF viewer, MS Word, textbox etc) with the center content of the image set as transparent. This allows using read() and snap() to perform OCR and save snapshots of application windows, containers, frames, textboxes with varying content. Also for read() and snap(), x1, y1, x2, y2 coordinates pair can be used to define the region of interest on the screen to perform OCR or capture snapshot.

CORE FUNCTIONS

Function Parameters Purpose
init() visual_automation = False, chrome_browser = True start TagUI, auto-call setup() on first run
close() close TagUI, Chrome browser, SikuliX
setup() setup TagUI to user home folder

DEBUG FUNCTIONS

Function Parameters Purpose
debug() True or False toggle debug mode, eg print and log debug info
send() tagui_instruction send TagUI instruction to TagUI for execution

BASIC FUNCTIONS

Function Parameters Purpose
url() webpage_url (no parameter to return current URL) go to web URL
click() element_identifier (or x, y using visual automation) left-click on element
rclick() element_identifier (or x, y using visual automation) right-click on element
dclick() element_identifier (or x, y using visual automation) double-click on element
hover() element_identifier (or x, y using visual automation) move mouse to element
type() element_identifier (or x, y), text_to_type ('[enter]', '[clear]') enter text at element
select() element_identifier (or x, y), option_value (or x, y) choose dropdown option
read() element_identifier (page = web page) (or x1, y1, x2, y2) fetch & return element text
snap() element_identifier (page = web page), filename_to_save save screenshot to file
load() filename_to_load load & return file content
dump() text_to_dump, filename_to_save save text to file
write() text_to_write, filename_to_save append text to file
echo() text_to_echo print text to screen
ask() text_to_prompt ask & return user input

PRO FUNCTIONS

Function Parameters Purpose
keyboard() keys_and_modifiers (using visual automation) send keystrokes to screen
mouse() 'down' or 'up' (using visual automation) send mouse event to screen
wait() delay_in_seconds (default 5 seconds) explicitly wait for some time
check() condition_to_check, text_if_true, text_if_false check condition & print result
table() element_identifier (XPath only), filename_to_save save basic HTML table to CSV
upload() element_identifier (CSS only), filename_to_upload upload file to web element
download() download_url, filename_to_save(optional) download from URL to file
unzip() file_to_unzip, unzip_location (optional) unzip zip file to specified location
frame() main_frame id or name, sub_frame (optional) set web frame, frame() to reset
popup() string_in_url (no parameter to reset to main page) set context to web popup tab
run() command_to_run (; between commands) run OS command & return output
dom() statement_to_run (JavaScript code) run code in DOM & return output
vision() command_to_run (Python code) run custom SikuliX commands
timeout() timeout_in_seconds (blank returns current timeout) change wait timeout (default 10s)

keyboard() - modifiers and special keys

[shift] [ctrl] [alt] [cmd] [win] [meta] [clear] [space] [enter] [backspace] [tab] [esc] [up] [down] [left] [right] [pageup] [pagedown] [delete] [home] [end] [insert] [f1] .. [f15] [printscreen] [scrolllock] [pause] [capslock] [numlock]

HELPER FUNCTIONS

Function Parameters Purpose
exist() element_identifier return True or False if element exists before timeout
present() element_identifier return True or False if element is present now
count() element_identifier return number of web elements as integer
coord() x_coordinate, y_coordinate return string '(x,y)' from integers x and y
mouse_xy() return '(x,y)' coordinates of mouse as string
mouse_x() return x coordinate of mouse as integer
mouse_y() return y coordinate of mouse as integer
title() return page title of current web page as string
text() return text content of current web page as string
timer() return time elapsed in sec between calls as float

About & Credits

TagUI is the number #1 open-source RPA software with thousands of active users. It was created in 2016-2017 when I left DBS Bank as a test automation engineer, to embark on a one-year sabbatical to Eastern Europe. Most of its code base was written in Novi Sad Serbia. My wife and I also spent a couple of months in Budapest Hungary, as well as Chiang Mai Thailand for visa runs. In 2018, I joined AI Singapore to continue development of TagUI.

Over the past 2 months I took on a daddy role full-time, taking care of my newborn baby girl and wife. In between nannying and caregiving, I decided to use my time pockets to create a Python package for TagUI. I would like to bring RPA into the heart of machine learning - the Python ecosystem. I hope that TagUI for Python and ML frameworks would be a match made in heaven, and that pip install tagui would make lives easier for Python users.

Lastly, at a mere 1000 lines of code, it would make my day to see developers of other languages porting this project over to their favourite programming language. It would be an interesting exercise and should not be difficult, given the ample comments I sprinkled all over this single-file package in tagui.py, and its intuitive architecture.

architecture

GitHub