WinAppDriver: SendKeys() using unknown keyboard configuration instead of local (azerty vs qwerty-like)

I’m using Appium to automate our new app. My first attempts is as simple as the code below. Here we use the AZERTY keyboard configuration.

However, the text entered in the app is with a QWERTY-like configuration, so “aaa” comes out as “qqq”. My “regular” Selenium tests never had this issue. However, trying out all the keys gave me some weird results. For example, I get the colon character twice from different keys, but no dot character… So it’s not a correct QWERTY either.

DesiredCapabilities appCapabilities = new DesiredCapabilities();
appCapabilities.SetCapability("app", "Company.NewApp_nhrabtd3q6ea2!App");
appCapabilities.SetCapability("platformName", "Windows");
appCapabilities.SetCapability("deviceName", "WindowsPC");

MobileFormsSession = new WindowsDriver<WindowsElement>(new Uri(WindowsApplicationDriverUrl), appCapabilities);

MobileFormsSession.FindElementByAccessibilityId("username").SendKeys("aaa");

About this issue

Original URL
State: open
Created 7 years ago
Reactions: 10
Comments: 27 (1 by maintainers)

Most upvoted comments

Bump! This needs to be fixed…

xiler8 on Jan 16, 2020

The copy past workaround won’t work if driving an app remotely. Can you fix this bug. It’s annoying to switch keyboard during development one for testing and one for developing. It’s hard to test mutlilanguages application

CyrilJ on Oct 20, 2017

currently only US keyboard layout is supported. We do understand what is going on here and would like to fix this.

yodurr on Jul 10, 2017

It boggles the mind that a product is released as production ready with a bug like this, which ties the tests written to the exact keyboard layout that the person who wrote the tests used. @yodurr any news on this?

runemoennike on May 21, 2021

can we get an update on this issue? it makes no sense to me that SendKeys does NOT send the keys you want, depending on your locale, and that something like that gets labeled as an enhancement, not a bug personaly, i was happy to learn that Katalon(which i use for automation testing) now supports WinAppDriver, but if i have to change my locale every time i want to test a windows application, then i won’t be automating those anytime soon please let us either specify a locale for the WinAppDriver or get the current locale when starting the driver

IzunaNeko on Dec 19, 2019

Hey, It’s been 6 years, is there any quick fix for that issue ?

3rdCore on Jun 7, 2023

Two years later, still can’t write a test properly… 👎

Exoow on Sep 3, 2019

@Exoow Yes. I have not program it yet, but I know that exists ways to change this by code. Anyway, if this were implemented in the code, it would be a great improvement. I think when you write a text in a SendKeys function. the text should be sent as you wrote, not depending about the language configuration, right?

manudh4 on May 18, 2018

Would be nice if Microsoft didn’t recommend a testing framework, then abandon it while promissing that it really isn’t abandoned.

runemoennike on Oct 31, 2023

I have a workaround on Windows 10 for this problem, but I hope this will be solved soon:

You can set a keyboard shortcut for the keyboard layout in Windows Settings -> Time & language -> Region & language -> Additional date, time, & regional settings -> Change input methods -> Advanced settings -> Change language bar hot keys.

I set US keyboard layout to ctrl+0 and my local keyboard layout to ctrl+1 and in my testcode I am using the shortcuts to switch the keyboard layout …

// switch to US keyboard layout Actions switchKeyboardLayoutActions = new Actions(session); switchKeyboardLayoutActions.SendKeys(Keys.Control + “0” + Keys.Control); switchKeyboardLayoutActions.Build(); switchKeyboardLayoutActions.Perform();

// your send keys actions …

// switch back keyboard layout switchKeyboardLayoutActions = new Actions(session); switchKeyboardLayoutActions.SendKeys(Keys.Control + “1” + Keys.Control); switchKeyboardLayoutActions.Build(); switchKeyboardLayoutActions.Perform();

bhaas on Sep 5, 2019

Hello, I have exactly the same error do you have a solution? Thanks

olivierhelin on Mar 6, 2019

I have the same issue. I am in Spain and when I run my program in Appium, if I do not change the keyboard language configuration to EN-US, my tests do not work.

Please, it would be interesting to fix this issue.

manudh4 on May 18, 2018

@yodurr Agreed but isn’t it partially a bug also (because I never get the dot, but colon twice)?

For those interested: the work-around is to copy text to the Windows clipboard and paste it. This keeps the text as passed in the test methods.

Exoow on Jul 11, 2017