GUI Capture

Overview

TODO

Approaches

There are different approaches for capturing GUI events:

Low Level Hooks

On Windwos it is possible to capture low level window events. Through these it is possible for a capturing tool to launch the AUT and then install a hook to receive all input events. This should also be the case for Unix although it is not checked yet.

Pro

• Capturing tool and AUT are separate
• Can capture events from any application

Contra

• Only receive low level events. No information about focus-changing for example.
• Unclear how to receive additional information about AUT like current active widget or widget name of clicked widgets

Eiffel Level Hooks

For Vision2 we could implement a capturing mode. When this mode is activated, all events - including focus-chaning events or other higher level events - could be exported to a file. The implementation would mainly be done in the underlying toolkit (WEL and GTK implementation).

Pro

• Capturing of all events
• Additional information is available (e.g. widget name)

Contra

• Activating capturing is part of the AUT
• Only Vision2 can be captured