How to control the mouse in Mac using Python?

Question

What would be the easiest way to move the mouse around (and possibly click) using Python on OS X?

This is just for rapid prototyping, it doesn't have to be elegant.

Answer 1

Try the code at this page. It defines a couple of functions, mousemove and mouseclick, which hook into Apple's integration between Python and the platform's Quartz libraries.

This code works on 10.6, and I'm using it on 10.7. The nice thing about this code is that it generates mouse events, which some solutions don't. I use it to control BBC iPlayer by sending mouse events to known button positions in their Flash player (very brittle I know). The mouse move events, in particular, are required as otherwise the Flash player never hides the mouse cursor. Functions like CGWarpMouseCursorPosition will not do this.

from Quartz.CoreGraphics import CGEventCreateMouseEvent
from Quartz.CoreGraphics import CGEventPost
from Quartz.CoreGraphics import kCGEventMouseMoved
from Quartz.CoreGraphics import kCGEventLeftMouseDown
from Quartz.CoreGraphics import kCGEventLeftMouseDown
from Quartz.CoreGraphics import kCGEventLeftMouseUp
from Quartz.CoreGraphics import kCGMouseButtonLeft
from Quartz.CoreGraphics import kCGHIDEventTap

def mouseEvent(type, posx, posy):
        theEvent = CGEventCreateMouseEvent(
                    None, 
                    type, 
                    (posx,posy), 
                    kCGMouseButtonLeft)
        CGEventPost(kCGHIDEventTap, theEvent)

def mousemove(posx,posy):
        mouseEvent(kCGEventMouseMoved, posx,posy);

def mouseclick(posx,posy):
        # uncomment this line if you want to force the mouse 
        # to MOVE to the click location first (I found it was not necessary).
        #mouseEvent(kCGEventMouseMoved, posx,posy);
        mouseEvent(kCGEventLeftMouseDown, posx,posy);
        mouseEvent(kCGEventLeftMouseUp, posx,posy);

Here is the code example from above page:

##############################################################
#               Python OSX MouseClick
#       (c) 2010 Alex Assouline, GeekOrgy.com
##############################################################
import sys
try:
        xclick=intsys.argv1
        yclick=intsys.argv2
        try:
                delay=intsys.argv3
        except:
                delay=0
except:
        print "USAGE mouseclick [int x] [int y] [optional delay in seconds]"
        exit
print "mouse click at ", xclick, ",", yclick," in ", delay, "seconds"
# you only want to import the following after passing the parameters check above, because importing takes time, about 1.5s
# (why so long!, these libs must be huge : anyone have a fix for this ?? please let me know.)
import time
from Quartz.CoreGraphics import CGEventCreateMouseEvent
from Quartz.CoreGraphics import CGEventPost
from Quartz.CoreGraphics import kCGEventMouseMoved
from Quartz.CoreGraphics import kCGEventLeftMouseDown
from Quartz.CoreGraphics import kCGEventLeftMouseDown
from Quartz.CoreGraphics import kCGEventLeftMouseUp
from Quartz.CoreGraphics import kCGMouseButtonLeft
from Quartz.CoreGraphics import kCGHIDEventTap
def mouseEventtype, posx, posy:
        theEvent = CGEventCreateMouseEventNone, type, posx,posy, kCGMouseButtonLeft
        CGEventPostkCGHIDEventTap, theEvent
def mousemoveposx,posy:
        mouseEventkCGEventMouseMoved, posx,posy;
def mouseclickposx,posy:
        #mouseEvent(kCGEventMouseMoved, posx,posy); #uncomment this line if you want to force the mouse to MOVE to the click location first (i found it was not necesary).
        mouseEventkCGEventLeftMouseDown, posx,posy;
        mouseEventkCGEventLeftMouseUp, posx,posy;
time.sleepdelay;
mouseclickxclick, yclick;
print "done."