WINIUM – A Desktop Application Automation Tool

Over the years, the development of smartphones and mobile devices has changed the way people used to interact with applications. This is why most application development companies these days prefer to invest in automated application testing solutions to meet their usability, functionality, and performance needs when serving desktop users.  

Though there are multiple tools available in the market for automating desktop applications, Winium is one such open-source tool that is successfully running in the market and is considered as one of the best automation tools for desktop applications.  

Let’s Dig Into More Detail 

As the name suggests, Winium is made using the combination of two terms “Win + Selenium = Winium.” It is a proper Selenium-based automation framework for Windows desktop applications and is compatible with many programming languages, namely Java, objective – C, JavaScript with Node.JS, PHP, Python, Ruby, C#.  

Besides this, Winium offers extended support on: 

• Windows Desktop (WPF, WinForms) Apps 

• Windows Store or Universal Apps for Windows Phone 

• Windows Phone Silverlight Apps 

As long as it is concerned with Winium as a testing platform, it is similar to Selenium and is an open-source tool. Since Selenium holds the highest market share with a broad user base as compared to other automation tools available, using Winium is much simpler for automation testers who have already worked on Selenium. 

Why We Need Winium Automation? 

There are many automation tools for windows applications available in the market for website automation or for mobile apps automation, such as selenium which works well with any browser like Chrome, Firefox, etc. However, Selenium is only good for web applications, while there are tools like Appium that are used for testing Android/iOS applications.  

Though there are numerous options available with the applications available when it comes to testing desktop apps, the Winium desktop testing solution allows covering the automation of all types of desktop apps. Winium is implemented on the protocol of JSONWire, which is used by Selenium and can be used for inspecting window-based application elements for effective desktop test automation. 

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Winium Documentation: The Essentials 

To perform the desktop application testing automation with Winium, we need access to some libraries. Access to these libraries is a must to start with the automation of window-based applications through Winium: 

• exe 

• WiniumDriver JAR 

• exe 

• Selenium-Server-Standalone JAR 

• exe file, which needs to be automated 

How to Automate Windows Application using Winium? 

Winium works in a much similar way as Selenium. However, there are few additional changes required at the testers' end to configure and set up Winium.  

The main difference between Selenium and Winium is that selenium automatically creates its session on localhost with a unique port, but in Winium, we have to create sessions manually through its exe file. Besides this, running an automation service through Winium needs the user to run a local server that supports the script, i.e., Winium server, whereas automating windows applications using Selenium does not require such efforts.  

Once the session is created for Winium, it means automation is now possible. However, without creating the session, automation cannot be started manually. When the first step is completed to create the session of Winium webdriver, i.e., on port 9999 and then all the automation task proceeds. If by any chance this session is destroyed or ends, test automation is stopped, and the entire session needs to be started again to continue with the automation. 

Though the working of Winium is similar to Selenium and scripting is done in a much similar way, to automate the windows application, we use WiniumDriver. Also, there are other classes and interface available which can be used in automation like WiniumOptions; an interface in the Winium library. 

Related Read: Why We choose Selenium WebDriver Over Selenium IDE?  

Role Of Selenium In Desktop Automation Using Winium 

The use of Selenium is very important to perform desktop automation through Winium. Without Selenium, Winium cannot be put to use for desktop test automation tasks, as suggested by its name. 

• In the automation of the window application, we need to use some classes and libraries of selenium. For example, there is a class of Selenium, i.e., by. In Winium, we need to use the same class for automation. 

• Winium uses most of the methods used by Selenium, thus any tester familiar with Selenium can easily pick on this tool as well. 

• Similar to Selenium, Winium also supports multiple testing frameworks like TestNG, JUnit, etc. 

• As Winium is Selenium based tool, it supports all the languages supported by Selenium like Java, C#, Ruby, Python, PHP, Perl, Objective C, Javascript with node.js. All these languages can be used through Selenium Webdriver API and then language-specific client libraries in Winium. 

Still, wondering how Winium can benefit your next desktop application project when efficient QA and testing support are your goals? Feel free to take your queries to our experts through info@bugraptors.com 

We will be glad to assist!