Benefits of Robot Class Documentation of Robot Class Understanding Robot Class internal methods and usage How to execute robot class code using testNG Dis-Advantages of Robot Class
Benefits of Robot Class
Robot Class can simulate Keyboard and Mouse Event Robot Class can help in upload/download of files when using selenium web driver Robot Class can easily be integrated with current automation framework (keyword, data-driven or hybrid)
To create the documentation on local machine, follow the steps below- Step 1) You will find the src.zip file in JDK folder. Copy src.zip and extract the same in some other folder or directory (say D: or E: )
Step 2) Extract src folder and Navigate to (path till src folder)/src/java/awt Step 3) Copy the current location of awt folder and open command prompt. Step 4) In cmd, change your current directory location to awt folder and type ‘javadoc *.java’ as shown below
Wait a while for the system to process, once completed you will see few HTML files in awt folder. Step 5) Open index.html
Step 6) Here’s you have full documentation of awt package, from the left navigation bar click on ‘Robot’ hyperlink (See 1 marked in below image).
Here you can also see all the methods and interfaces of Robot Class (See 2 marked in above image).
Understanding Robot Class internal methods and usage
Robot Class methods can be used to interact with keyboard/mouse events while doing browser automation. Alternatively AutoIT can be used, but its drawback is that it generates an executable file (exe) which will only work on windows, so it is not a good option to use. Some commonly and popular used methods of Robot Class during web automation:
keyPress(): Example: robot.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_DOWN) : This method with press down arrow key of Keyboard mousePress() : Example : robot.mousePress(InputEvent.BUTTON3_DOWN_MASK) : This method will press the right click of your mouse. mouseMove() : Example: robot.mouseMove(point.getX(), point.getY()) : This will move mouse pointer to the specified X and Y coordinates. keyRelease() : Example: robot.keyRelease(KeyEvent.VK_DOWN) : This method with release down arrow key of Keyboard mouseRelease() : Example: robot.mouseRelease(InputEvent.BUTTON3_DOWN_MASK) : This method will release the right click of your mouse
Sample code to automate common use cases using Robot Class
Lets take example of web site http://spreadsheetpage.com/index.php/file/C35/P10/ wherein after you click on a web element (.//a[@href=contains(text(),’yearly-calendar.xls’]) a O.S download pop-up appears.
To handle this we use Robot class (by creating an instance of Robot Class in your code say Robot robot = new Robot()) . Robot class us present in AWT package of JDK.
To press down arrow key of Keyboard we use (robot.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_DOWN)) To press TAB key of keyboard (we use robot.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_TAB)) To press Enter key we use (robot.keyPress(KeyEvent.VK_ENTER)).
Here is a sample code Check this video to see it in action
How to execute Robot Class code using TestNG
Since, now you aware of basic methods of Robot Class so let’s understand few more complex methods – Suppose you do not want to use the click method for clicking at web element. In such cases, you can use mouseMove method of the Robot class. Step 1) mouseMove method takes x and y coordinates as parameters like robot.mouseMove(630, 420) where 630 indicates x-axis and 420 indicate y-axis. So, this method will move your mouse pointer from the current location to mentioned x and y intersection point. Step 2) Next, we need to press the mouse button. We can use the method mousePress like robot.mousePress(InputEvent.BUTTON1_DOWN_MASK) . Step 3) After press, the mouse needs to be released. We can use robot.mouseRelease(InputEvent.BUTTON1_DOWN_MASK) in order to release left click of a mouse. Running code using testNG: Running code using Testng requires maven dependency of testNG or referenced library of TestNG jar file. TestNG maven dependency: After adding maven dependency or jar file. You need to import Test annotation of testNG. Once it is all done, just Right click on the program code and click on Run As then click on TestNG… and you will find that code will start its execution using testNG API. Here is the code Check this video to see it in action
Disadvantages of Robot Class
Robot framwork has few disadvantages mentioned below:
Keyword/mouse event will only works on current instance of Window. E.g. suppose a code is performing any robot class event, and during the code execution user has moved to some other screen then keyword/mouse event will occur on that screen. Most of the methods like mouseMove is screen resolution dependent so there might be a chance that code working on one machine might not work on other.
Summary
Robot class in AWT package is used to generate keyboard/mouse events to interact with OS windows and native apps. The primary purpose of Robot is to support selenium automated tests project build in Java platform
