Balogh Gergő's List: ui automation

• AutomationElement labeler1; object labelerNoDefault =  autoElement.GetCurrentPropertyValue(AutomationElement.LabeledByProperty, true); if (labelerNoDefault == AutomationElement.NotSupported) {  // TODO Handle the case where you do not wish to proceed using the default value. } else {  labeler1 = labelerNoDefault as AutomationElement; }

• You can turn off the managed Debugging Assistant for the "NonComVisibleBaseClass" exception. In Visual Studio,
  
  1. Navigate to Debug->Exceptions...
  2. Expand "Managed Debugging Assistants"
  3. Uncheck the NonComVisibleBaseClass Thrown option.
  4. Click [Ok]

• // elementList is an AutomationElement. string helpString =  elementList.GetCurrentPropertyValue(AutomationElement.HelpTextProperty) as string;

•       GetCurrentPropertyValue(AutomationProperty)      Retrieves the value of the specified property on this AutomationElement. An appropriate default value for the property type is returned for properties not explicitly supported by the target user interface (UI) element.

• but many HWNDs were removed in place of WPF UI elements
• So what to do? It’s clear that relying on a HWND structure isn’t going to cut it, but we’d like to continue to use the majority of our old regression tests from the previous release of Visual Studio because it would be very expensive to re-write them all.
• the new accessibility framework for Microsoft Windows, available on all operating systems that support Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF).
• Microsoft UI Automation
• “a way to categorize and expose a control's functionality independent of the control type or the appearance of the control.”
• patterns,
• There is not really such a thing as an “invisible” or “background” elements in UIA – when an element is gone, it will no longer be in the UIA tree.
• HWND searching via various user32 API calls is fast. Using IAccessible is reasonably fast. UIA is not as fast. Net effect: running our tests became more expensive as they take more machine time.

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• UISpy.exe (UI Spy)

  • under win7 it is no longer UISpy, it called: Inspect Objects