AutomationID documentation for Vivaldi (Chromium): Browser automation
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I'm using Autohotkey for various automation tasks, relying on the UIA-v2 library (https://github.com/Descolada/UIA-v2)
As it turns out, many simple tasks such as NewTab, SetURL etcpp need browser-specific implementations. The author of UIA-v2 recently helped me with some adaptations for Vivaldi - but it's really a big challenge making this work for Chrome, Edge AND Vivaldi even though all these browsers are based on Chromium!
AutomationID's should be exactly the solution to our problems since we want to achieve browser- and language/layout-independent automation of browser-tasks.
My question: Where can I find documentation on the automationID's for Vivaldi (or for all Chromium browsers)? Have searched forums and google but no success. Does Vivaldi have a specific implemention of automationID's or are changes/improvements planned? Is this on the radar for Vivaldi development?
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@emp00 Vivaldi has no API to automate the browser and its UI.
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This questions is not about an API -> it's about the UI automation standard = "User Interface automation".
See here for some introductory information: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/framework/ui-automation/ui-automation-overview
See also the github-link (in my thread-opener) for more information. As a matter of fact, we're facing huge issues with Vivaldi (not with Chrome/Edge!) - all we can do is "reverse engineer" element names in order to automate simple tasks such as grabbing a certain tab URL, opening a new tab, selecting or closing a specific tab, browsing to a new url etcpp. A major problem with Vivaldi is differences based on browser/system-language and layout-customizations requiring different element names/IDs.
In my understanding, excatly therefore the "automationID"-concept is available but it needs to be implemented so that Vivaldi browser functions actually have "IDs" which can be easily accessed (language+layout-independently!) via these "automationIDs". Are you aware of this for Vivaldi?
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@emp00 As i know Vivaldi's user interface can not be automated as it has no such IDs for its UI elements.
For testing the Vivaldi devs have their own non-public tools. -
@DoctorG : Exactly this was the base of my question - why does Vivaldi not implement such automationIDs ? It's a very important feature in my eyes - think about "accessability", disabled persons might want to automate Vivaldi. I also would like to automate the browser for repetitive tasks and efficiency reasons. Autohotkey is a great tool for doing this and it's possible already (with the mentioned issues) -> Vivaldi is just not well prepared for that. "Simply" adding automationID's to the main browser functions and documenting those would be the solution. Why not?
Have a look here, this is already possible and it works flawlessly with Chrome+Edge but not Vivaldi: https://github.com/Descolada/UIA-v2/wiki/12.-UIA_Browser
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@emp00 such request to automate was requested since many years but not added. I can not tell why.
Similar issue with Selenium ⇒ https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/34084/selenium-webdriver-compatibility
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@emp00 Please report issue to Vivaldi bug tracker. May be you get an better answer.
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@DoctorG : Isn't this rather a "feature request" instead of a "bug"? Is there a better place to post this in the forums (better than here?) - just le me know. A bug report does not really fit, I think.
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@emp00 OK, if you think such is useful, read Request New Feature, open forum Feature Requests and post request.
But i do not see great chance that you will get enough votes and may be, such feature will be added in 5-10 years or never. -
I can imagine, not many people are affected - that's also the reason I posted this here --> to make more people aware of the possibilities of browser automation. I really love this - and I only found out by chance this is possible. Maybe we can discuss here, anybody who's interested please check out the github-pages and give it a try with Autohotkey.
Imagine all the repetitive browsing tasks you can automate 100% (press hotkey: open specific pages, do calculations, scrape content from pages, click buttons, copy/paste data from the browser to notepad.exe etcpp - endless possibilities) and disabled people will also love Vivaldi much more if such simple AutomationIDs would be implemented. Chrome and Edge are more advanced than Vivaldi in this respect, this should be tackled.
