Try AskUI in Your Browser With Gitpod
Tags: uitesting, tutorial, testing, askui
Published: 2023-02-20 07:19:50

AskUI controls your operating system (OS) through mouse movement, mouseclicks, keypresses and screencapture.

Thus it can be a pain to install it on your local machine. Not everything might work out of the box or there are simply permissions missing (looking at you macOS 🫣).

But we have a solution we will show you in this blog post! 

Our GitHub repository has a ready-to-go Gitpod configuration inside where you can try out AskUI for free in your browser without any installation issues. 

All you need is a GitHub account and a Gitpod account 🦄

## Setup
Head over to [Gitpod.io](https://www.gitpod.io/), create an account with your Github account, and you're ready to go!

Our repository also has an access token and workspace id already configured so you can just click the **Open in Gitpod** button and get started.

👇 It looks like this 👇
![Open in Gitpod-Button.](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/12z4wx0bvhi5aiiuit78.png)
<figcaption>**Don't click me here! This is just an image 😋!**</figcaption>

## Start the Gitpod Workspace
Visit our [prepared Git-Repository](https://github.com/askui/askui-try-out) and click on the Button **Open in Gitpod**. This should redirect you to Gitpod and automatically open the Git-Repository in Gitpod.

> Note: Startup may take a few minutes as this is a custom build!

If you never opened a repository in Gitpod before you have to select a code editor. Choose the default one, which should be Visual Studio Code.

## Tidy Up your Gitpod Workspace
First, we will tidy up your workspace as the Visual Studio Code Editor in your browser is cluttered:

* **Hide Sidebar**: press _CTRL_ + _b_ (_COMMAND_ + _b_ on macOS)
* **Remove Get Started tab**: Left click on the _x_ beneath the tab

Your browser window should look like this afterward:

![VSCode setup in Gitpod after hiding sidebar and closing tab Get Started.](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/rj55lf658u07rv9i0i71.png)

## Open the GUI of the workspace
On startup of this workspace, AskUI gets installed in the background and the first automation already started!

Click on the tab _Simple Browser_ to see this workspace's GUI (Linux Desktop). What you see is a real GUI from a physical device, but in the cloud. If you see red boxes, like the one in the next picture, around elements, it means the automation is ready to run:

![Red Bounding Boxes around the annotated elements on the desktop.](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/st42jtab0vx6h1nvf1y2.png)
<figcaption>Red Bounding Boxes around the annotated elements on the desktop.</figcaption>

You can also resize the tab to have a better viewing experience.

Or you could open it in a different tab for maximum view size by opening the **Ports** tab and click on **Open Preview** icon for port _6080_ where the virtual desktop of the Gitpod environment is running:

![Switch to ports tab and open preview in Gitpod.](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/askui/askui-try-out/main/img/reopen-simple-browser.gif)

## Observe First AskUI Automation Run
Click in the _Simple Browser_ tab to get the focus into the GUI.

You should see that a text editor (Geany) has been opened and some text is already in there. Read it before you go to the next paragraph.

Then press _ESC_ on your keyboard and observe that AskUI types in some more text, moves the mouse, opens Google Chrome, and navigates to a webpage by typing in the URL and pressing ENTER on your keyboard. In between there should be some popups that get clicked away 😉

For better understanding:

> AskUI automates your Operating System as a real human would! With real mouse movement, keystrokes, and visual selection of elements.

If you want to know how the code looks to achieve this, click on the tab `my-first-askui-test-suite.test.ts` to see the code with comments for each instruction.

## Where To Go Now
You have now seen what simple automation in a remote cloud environment can do.

Head over to [our User Portal](https://hubs.ly/Q01BtJ4Z0) to register (and use) AskUI for free on your local machine.

For local installation follow [the Onboarding Guide](https://docs.askui.com/docs/general/Getting%20Started/getting-started).

If you need more inspiration we have the following resources for you:

* [AskUI docs](https://hubs.ly/Q01BtJ640)
* [Flutter Example Repository](https://github.com/askui/flutter-example-automation)
* [Example askui Automations on Github](https://github.com/askui/askui-examples)

And our [Discord-Community](https://discord.gg/KFYJ5xuyBA) to answer any questions.

## Bonus
There is also a video if you want to see AskUI in Gitpod in action:
{% youtube sYPZsbTKKQg %}