Selenium w/WinAppDriver, now and future

[Lars]

Hi,

my company is considering Selenium w/WinAppDriver as a future testing platform. What's the Selenium team's attitude towards Windows desktop testing in general and with WinAppDriver in particular? Also, from reading the WinAppDriver github site, it's not clear what Microsoft's long term plans are for WinAppDriver: will they continue to develop and support it, will it abandoned / replaced by something else. If this happened, what would be the Selenium position: take over development, support one of the many WinAppDriver forks, something else?

Br,

Lars 

NB: apologies if this is a double post, first attempt didnt show up

[Jim Evans]

The Selenium team focuses on browser automation, but the protocol on which it is based, WebDriver, applies also to many forms of UI-based automation. As far as I am aware, WinAppDriver is not open-source, so I’m not sure about the “forks” to which you’re referring. Having said that, as long as a driver uses the WebDriver protocol, the Selenium library (and projects that depend on it like Appium) will continue to support it.

As for the multiple posts, the list is moderated for first-time posters, and posts will not show up until approved by a moderator. You should be able to post freely hereafter. 

[Lars]

Thanks. What's the best way to get support from your organization, preferably have some contact with the core team. We're making a major commitment by switching to Selenium (have a large existing QA base) so want to make sure that we have communication channels with your team.

Br,

lars

[David]

Curious, what automation tools did you switch away from, to WinAppDriver now?

It would be great when many (or most) non-web GUI automation tools, whether open source or commercial adopt the JSONWireProtocol, such that you could more easily switch between the underlying tool as needed without changing the core of the test code/scripts since the driver logic/syntax is for the most part the same - variations may occur for how the driver is started up or how you connect to the remote driver instance, and how you define the element locators, but the general actions & navigation flow would remain the same.

To that extent, depending on your exact needs, WinAppDriver isn't the only WebDriver complaint desktop automation tool, so you have some fallback options. Here's some references:

https://github.com/2gis/Winium

https://github.com/kfrajtak/WinAppDriver/ (unrelated to the actual MS WinAppDriver)

https://github.com/MicroFocus/SilkAppDriver

https://github.com/daluu/AutoItDriverServer

https://github.com/daluu/AutoPyDriverServer

https://autumnator.wordpress.com/2021/09/27/webdriver-api-for-all-ui-automation-and-more/

[Lars]

We're using Ranorex at the moment. As for WinAppDriver, it's a good option for us but we're a bit concerned if Microsoft will actively maintain it in the future - we're seeing some indications on their github site where the PM

responded to questions about a 6-8m hiatus with a somewhat dismissive comment. Maybe the concern is unfounded, but still, we'd like to know what our options are: is WinAppDriver something the selenium community would adopt if 

Microsoft didn't maintain it, would the whole aspect of desktop testing be important enough to you that you would create an alternative, etc

[David]

Jim mentioned earlier the WinAppDriver source code is not open (yet - the MS PM or one of the related threads in Github mention there is discussion of open sourcing it but is a big task for them to get around to if ever), I don't see how anyone can take it over without the codebase being open source.

As you mention Ranorex, are you trying to move away from it for cost reasons? And have you engaged Ranorex regarding a WebDriver interface to their desktop automation tooling? I notice searching online, they have WebDriver integration for the web automation aspect, but sounds like nothing with respect to desktop automation. I made a forum post about it years ago to which nobody replied. Perhaps there's more room for discussion when it comes to a paying customer vs just a random poster like me. https://www.ranorex.info/thoughts-on-a-ranorex-webdriver-t7423.html, that post was targetted back in an era when Ranorex was more focused on desktop automation.

RE: would the whole aspect of desktop testing be important enough to you that you would create an alternative, etc

There's already many tools for alternatives (referenced in my blog post link earlier), just that for whatever reason, desktop automation developers have less interest in adopting a WebDriver interface for their tools. Appium started out as a proof of concept hobby/side project as a "WebDriver for mobile automation", and not directly affiliated with the Selenium project/community, it has spawned a community of it's own relating to Selenium. Time will tell if anything similar happens in the desktop world.