What is dogtail?
dogtail is a GUI test tool and automation framework written in Python. It uses Accessibility (a11y) technologies to communicate with desktop applications. dogtail scripts are written in Python and executed like any other Python program.
dogtail is free software released under the GPL. Some example code is released to the Public Domain.
Movies of dogtail in action can be found in the media section.
Features
dogtail has a number of features that aid in the automation and testing of desktop applications. These include:
- Scripts written in Python - Since dogtail uses Python as its scripting language, scriptwriters gain enormous power and flexibility in what they can do with dogtail. If you can do it in Python, you can do it with dogtail.
- Procedural API - A procedural scripting API allows for fast and easy blackbox tests to be written. Ace programmer credentials are not necessary to write useful automated scripts.
- Easily Extensible - dogtail is object oriented "under the covers" so more advanced users can write custom classes and helper libraries simply.
- Results and debug reporting - Test case comparisons are written to a tab-delimited results file for easy processing. Debug information is written to its own log for detailed analysis of what happened during script execution.
Requirements
See the Downloads page.
The Canine Connection
The name "Dogtail" was originally a codename derived from an acronym of "Desktop GUI Tester for Linux", but there is nothing Linux-specific about Dogtail: it ought to be equally at home on any platform supporting both Python and AT-SPI, such as Solaris, or the BSDs. You may need to do a little house-training to get our puppy used to the new environment though.
