Keeping the terminal in focus

Question

I have a python script which uses selenium to automate web page, drawing focus away from the terminal where user input is required.

Is there anyway in python

Answer 1

For getting focus, check the comments to this answer.

A cross-platform method could be to use Tkinter for the user GUI, as it has methods to grab and set focus for its windows.

Answer 2

If you don't care about clearing any figure displayed in the matplotlib frame -- which I believe is normally the case when one wants to get the focus back on the console for user input -- use simply this:

plt.close("all")

Answer 3

This doesn't really answer your question, but the easy solution is to not take the focus away in the first place:

driver = webdriver.PhantomJS()
# ...

The PhantomJS webdriver doesn't have any UI, so does not steal the focus.

Answer 4

Here is what I came up with that seems to be working.

class WindowManager:
    def __init__(self):
        self._handle = None

    def _window_enum_callback( self, hwnd, wildcard ):
        if re.match(wildcard, str(win32gui.GetWindowText(hwnd))) != None:
            self._handle = hwnd

    #CASE SENSITIVE
    def find_window_wildcard(self, wildcard):
        self._handle = None
        win32gui.EnumWindows(self._window_enum_callback, wildcard)

    def set_foreground(self):
        win32gui.ShowWindow(self._handle, win32con.SW_RESTORE)
        win32gui.SetWindowPos(self._handle,win32con.HWND_NOTOPMOST, 0, 0, 0, 0, win32con.SWP_NOMOVE + win32con.SWP_NOSIZE)  
        win32gui.SetWindowPos(self._handle,win32con.HWND_TOPMOST, 0, 0, 0, 0, win32con.SWP_NOMOVE + win32con.SWP_NOSIZE)  
        win32gui.SetWindowPos(self._handle,win32con.HWND_NOTOPMOST, 0, 0, 0, 0, win32con.SWP_SHOWWINDOW + win32con.SWP_NOMOVE + win32con.SWP_NOSIZE)
        shell = win32com.client.Dispatch("WScript.Shell")
        shell.SendKeys('%')
        win32gui.SetForegroundWindow(self._handle)

    def find_and_set(self, search):
        self.find_window_wildcard(search)
        self.set_foreground()

Then to find a window and make it active you can...

w = WindowManager()
w.find_and_set(".*cmd.exe*")

This is in python 2.7, also here are some links I found to explain why you have to go through so much trouble to switch active windows.

win32gui.SetActiveWindow() ERROR : The specified procedure could not be found

Windows 7: how to bring a window to the front no matter what other window has focus?