Double clicking a python file doesn't have the same result as running through cmd

Question

i am trying to make a zoom bot with pyautogui, I have got it working fine in pycharm/running it from the cmd but when i try to run it double clicking the main file everything breaks down. Basically the code is searching for one image using the locateCenterOnScreen() function and clicks it.

# Opening the zoom App
os.popen('C:\\Users\\user\\AppData\\Roaming\\Zoom\\bin\\Zoom.exe')
time.sleep(3)

# Click on join a meeting
join = pyautogui.locateCenterOnScreen('JoinMeeting.png', grayscale=True)
pyautogui.moveTo(join)
pyautogui.click()
time.sleep(3)

So, everything works as intended when on pycharm and when on the folder that the main is running on cmd (using python main.py) Yet, if I double click the main, it opens the cmd and then crashes saying it cannot locate the image on the locateCenterOnScreen function. My initial thought was that if you double click, it doesn't run where the .png file is and thus doesn't find it, but this can't be because when I run it through cmd it finds the picture perfectly.

I am trying to turn this whole project into .exe to make it usable for more people and this is why i need it to work with double click, because when I turn it into a .exe it will behave the same way.

Thank you

Answer 1

when you double click it uses the default "open with" option, and that might not be python. Python programs need to be opened with python.exe. I believe the default is python launcher.

But if you want to make it into an executable file (.exe), all you need is cx-Freeze. It is an extremely useful tool that turns python codes into exe files. In the end, the effect of double clicking shouldn't matter.

I have cx-Freeze 3.4, and here's a video that explains how to download and use it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HosXxXE24hA

Answer 2

To address your issue, you could easily change your code to no longer depend on the current work directory but instead locate the files relatively to the path of your script.

Here is an example:

import os

# Get the absolute path of the Python script and extract the directory (dirname)
here = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))
# Concatenate the path with the image name
join_meeting_path = os.path.join(here, 'JoinMeeting.png')

# Opening the zoom App
os.popen('C:\\Users\\user\\AppData\\Roaming\\Zoom\\bin\\Zoom.exe')
time.sleep(3)

# Click on join a meeting
# Use the variable to be independent of the location.
join = pyautogui.locateCenterOnScreen(join_meeting_path, grayscale=True)
pyautogui.moveTo(join)
pyautogui.click()
time.sleep(3)

Let me know if it works for you.