Pywinauto 0.6.0 access browser URL in edit control for Firefox

Question

I am currently trying to access URL of the active window for Firebox browser using Pywinauto 0.6.0, as part of a python app that can track website usage. I am a newbie python programmer, so if I have made some obvious mistakes then this is why.

I have read all the material I can find on Google and the Pywinauto docs, but there are no clear indications of how to do this, atleast not without using "Typekeys" after connecting to a window.

In fact, I have been able to access to the URL the "hack" way by connecting to the browser window with pywinauto, then using "TypeKeys()" to grab the URL and copy it to clipboard. But this approach will not work for me, as it interrupts the user and my app must run in the background whilst the user is accessing their system as usual. Using the typekeys method introduces some odd mouse and window behaviour when changing or refreshing windows and then trying to grab the URL - so the approach has proven unworkable for me.

Currently the code I have is as follows (I have used the window text title='' of a specific window I am using for testing, in practice it is whichever the active tab on the browser is):

from pywinauto import *

app = application.Application()
app.connect(title=u'Facebook - Log In or Sign Up - Mozilla Firefox', found_index=0)
window = app.top_window_()
window.PrintControlIdentifiers()
titlebar = window.child_window(title=u'Facebook - Log In or Sign Up - Mozilla Firefox')
toolbar = titlebar.child_window(title=u'Navigation Toolbar')
combobox = toolbar.child_window(title=u'Search or enter address')
edit = combobox.child_window(title=u'Search or enter address')

I use PrintControlIdentifiers() in order to see which elements I can interact with, but this returns only

MozillaWindowClass - 'Facebook - Log In or Sign Up - Mozilla Firefox' (L-32000, T-32000, R-31840, B-31944) [u'Facebook - Log In or Sign Up - Mozilla Firefox', u'MozillaWindowClass', u'Facebook - Log In or Sign Up - Mozilla FirefoxMozillaWindowClass']

I can access the Firefox Window fine with the current active tab, but next when trying to access the ChildWindow and subsequent ChildWindow there is no error, until I try and do something with the childwindow e.g., Click() function on what I think in the URL bar UI element. However, I am not sure even if the code is even accessing the child window element correctly in the first place. Or if this the right way to try and filter through the child elements to get to the URL edit control element.

As can be seen in the below image of the tree view of the UI elements (using UISPY.exe), the following tree to access the firefox browser edit control element that contains the URL is:

Tree view of Firefox UI elements via UISPY

"window" -> "title bar" -> "tool bar" "Navigation Toolbar" -> "combo box" -> "Search or enter address" -> "edit" "Search or enter address

where the "edit" control contains the attribute Value, Value:"url", which I need to extract to a variable.

Any help with this would greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

This is probably too late to post but incase any future developers has similiar question. Here is working solution.

Just pass backend='uia' as argument like application.Application(backend='uia'). Now, accessing and performing actions on child_window is possible.

Here is complete code snippet for any url.

url='https://google.com'
app = application.Application(backend='uia').connect(title_re=".*Mozilla Firefox")
main_firefox_winspec = app.window(title_re=".*Mozilla Firefox")
address_bar = main_firefox_winspec.child_window(title_re=".*or enter address", control_type="Edit")
address_bar.set_edit_text(url)
time.sleep(3)
main_firefox_winspec.child_window(title="Go to the address in the Location Bar").wrapper_object().click_input()