40: Raimund Hocke: Getting Started with Sikuli Image Based Testing

Getting Started with Image Based Testing

Are you a tester who’s trying to automate something that your normal test automation tool is not recognizing? Or are you a gamer looking to create a gaming bot? Maybe you’re a combination of both. If any of those apply, this episode is for you. Today I’ll be Test Talking about the open-source, image based tool Sikuli with its core developer and maintainer, Raimund Hocke.

I think this is one of the most inspiring Test Talks to date because Raimund started the Sikulix project later in life, at a time when most people stop trying new things and become learning-stagnant. Raimund is proof that it’s never too late to learn something new, and his enthusiasm for Sikuli really comes through in this interview.

About Raimund Hocke

Raimund is the Senior Support Manager for SikuliX. Sikuli is a visual technology to automate graphical user interfaces (GUI) using images (screenshots). Sikuli Script automates anything you see on the screen. You can programmatically control a web page or a desktop application running on Windows/Linux/Mac OS X or even a Mobile Phone application running in an emulator.

Quotes & Insights from this Test Talk

• You can use SikuliX to create game bots
• Sikuli started as a image based automation project at MIT
• Sikilu is like WYSIWYG for UI automation
• Sikuli started with  2010, SikuliX includes everything from the start of the project but will not include new features. SikuliX2 will have not have native code just Java, it will also have better image handling functionality and will support more scripting languages.
• SikuliX 2 will have better integration with RobotFramework
• SikuliX can help automate anything you see on the screen of your desktop computer running Windows, Mac or some Linux/Unix.
• Sikuli uses image recognition powered by OpenCV to identify and control GUI components.
• SikuliX supports Java as well as  scripting languages like Python level 2.7 (supported by Jython) and Ruby  level 1.9 and 2.0 (supported by JRuby)
• SikuliX works with multi-monitors
• SikuliX comes with basic text recognition (OCR) and can be used to search text in images.

Resources

• Sikuli QuickStart

Connect with Raimund Hocke

• Twitter: meRaiMan
• Github:
• Blog:http://www.sikulix.com/

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