Roadmap

PyAutoGUI is planned as a replacement for other Python GUI automation scripts, such as PyUserInput, PyKeyboard, PyMouse, pykey, etc. Eventually it would be great to offer the same type of features that Sikuli offers.

For now, the primary aim for PyAutoGUI is cross-platform mouse and keyboard control and a simple API.

Future features planned (specific versions not planned yet):

  • A tool for determining why an image can’t be found in a particular screenshot. (This is a common source of questions for users.)
  • Full compatibility on Raspberry Pis.
  • “Wave” function, which is used just to see where the mouse is by shaking the mouse cursor a bit. A small helper function.
  • locateNear() function, which is like the other locate-related screen reading functions except it finds the first instance near an xy point on the screen.
  • Find a list of all windows and their captions.
  • Click coordinates relative to a window, instead of the entire screen.
  • Make it easier to work on systems with multiple monitors.
  • GetKeyState() type of function
  • Ability to set global hotkey on all platforms so that there can be an easy “kill switch” for GUI automation programs.
  • Optional nonblocking pyautogui calls.
  • “strict” mode for keyboard - passing an invalid keyboard key causes an exception instead of silently skipping it.
  • rename keyboardMapping to KEYBOARD_MAPPING
  • Ability to convert png and other image files into a string that can be copy/pasted directly in the source code, so that they don’t have to be shared separately with people’s pyautogui scripts.
  • Test to make sure pyautogui works in Windows/mac/linux VMs.
  • A way to compare two images and highlight differences between them (good for pointing out when a UI changes, etc.)
Window handling features:
  • pyautogui.getWindows() # returns a dict of window titles mapped to window IDs
  • pyautogui.getWindow(str_title_or_int_id) # returns a “Win” object
  • win.move(x, y)
  • win.resize(width, height)
  • win.maximize()
  • win.minimize()
  • win.restore()
  • win.close()
  • win.position() # returns (x, y) of top-left corner
  • win.moveRel(x=0, y=0) # moves relative to the x, y of top-left corner of the window
  • win.clickRel(x=0, y=0, clicks=1, interval=0.0, button=’left’) # click relative to the x, y of top-left corner of the window
  • Additions to screenshot functionality so that it can capture specific windows instead of full screen.