What is Sikuli and How does it work? | Sikuli Tutorial

Sikuli Tutorial | All About Sikuli:

In this article, you will learn:

• What is Sikuli?
• How is it used practically?
• How to install Sikuli?
• Benefits of Sikuli
• Disadvantages of Sikuli

What is Sikuli?

Sikuli is a Graphical User Interface(GUI) automation Tool. It automates the method using the visual image method. In the Sikuli tool, all the web elements' images should be captured and kept inside the project. Sikuli triggers the interaction based on the visual match, the image is passed as a parameter along with the methods. It is useful where the GUI components are not useful. Every window-based application can easily be automated through Sikuli. Sikuli provides a very friendly Sikuli-script.jar, it can easily be used with Selenium Webdriver.  

How is it used practically?

• It is used to automate Flash Websites.
• It is useful to automate the steps of the Window based applications. We can automate the GUI. 
• It gives a simple API in which all methods can be accessed through screen class objects.
• It can automate desktop applications.
• It uses a powerful “Visual match” to automate the desktop and flash objects.

How to install Sikuli?

Prerequisites

• Install any screenshot capture tool such as snippet, qSnap, or more. 
• Install JDK.
• Install eclipse.

Steps to create the Sikuli Java Project

• Download Sikuli
• Extract the files from the zip file that you have downloaded.
• Open Eclipse
• Create a new java project.
• Right-click on the project. Click on the build path -> click on the libraries tab -> click on the external jars -> lastly click on “OK”.

Benefits of Sikuli

• It is an open-source tool.
• The biggest advantage of Sikuli is it can easily automate Flash objects.
• It can easily automate the windows application. 
• When you are testing an application under development and you are not aware of the elements, then you should go for the Sikuli. It will check the appearance of the image and if it is found, then it will interact with the same image accordingly.

Disadvantages of Sikuli

• If any screenshot is missing, then it will affect the execution of the program. 
• We need to take too many screenshots.
• If the image appearance varies, then it will give the error “Find Failed” exception. 
• The image is not always accurate. Sometimes, if the two images are similar on the screen, Sikuli will attempt to select the wrong image.