Sikuli Tutorial & GUI Walkthrough

If you have never opened up the Sikuli GUI, here is an idea of how the IDE looks like. Sikuli opens as a text editor that interprets Java and Python. Think of Sikuli as a code interpreter that can run python and java. This is where the JYTHON term comes from.

These are the most functions of Sikuli that you need to understand to use this tool. Once you know how to navigate through this program, the rest will come easy to you.

1. Take Screenshot: This button allows you to take screenshots and place them in the script that you are writing. If you have ever used the windows snipping tool, it is exactly like that. Whenever you need the bot to navigate around your computer screen such as to open Chrome or Internet Explorer, you can simply click on this button to take a screenshot of the icon and once you wrap it around the “click()” function, the bot will recognize the command and try to find the image on your screen and it will click on it. The take screenshot button is the most useful way of helping to insert your screenshots into the script you write. The hotkey to take a screenshot is (CTRL-SHIFT-2). The screenshot key is very handy when needing to take a screenshot of a window or menu dropdown that disappears when your mouse stops hovering over it.

2. Message Log: Once you have written your script and either want to test or run it, the message box will show what the code results were line by line. This very helpful when you want to debug your script and find out what should not be happening. It is also very handy in letting you know what line your script stopped or has resulted in an error.

3. Script: This is where you will write the code and whatever is written here will be executed. This is similar to writing in a notepad file or a word document. Since the interpreter is Python based, it will understand all python programming language based code written in here. It also follows the same syntax and structure. (Reference to functions list (Page #)

4. Run: I guarantee that you will click this button over a hundred times. This button is how you run the script once you have written it. Once you click “Run”, Sikuli takes over your computer and will run the code line by line. If you accidentally run your script and want to the stop the execution of the code, there is a hotkey to stop the script run and bring the Sikuli GUI back up: ALT-SHIFT-C.

I hope this helps you understand the Sikuli GUI. If you have any questions about the Sikuli settings or how to use certain functions, feel free to post on the forums.