UI Automation with MSAA
in [CSharp]
|
From: Helmut Giese on 6 Jan 2010 12:08 Hi Steve, whow, progress - at least a bit. >Ok I spoke to soon in my last post. It seems that the third try >(described in my previous post) does in fact work. However the >highlight is not being moved to the newly selected row. The only way >I can tell that the selected row has changed is that the little >pointer icon (which indicates current row) is moved to the row of my >choosing. > >Now although the code mentioned does seem to work in that it does move >the current row icon (though not the row selection hightlight) the app >being automated does not seem to regocnize that the current row has >changed. IOW words after changing the current row (as per the code in >try three of my previous post) then performing another UI action which >is to operate on the currently selected item in the list...the action >is performed againt the highlighted row not the one I selected and >which has the current row indicator. > >Any ideas? sorry <throwing hands up in despair> I'm a newbie in C# - your description just rang a bell. Besides: no matter what language, I am definitively _not_ a GUI type - I am always fighting them. Let's hope someone else with "real knowledge" chimes in. This being said another faint memory comes to mind: I seem to remember that being _selected_ and being the _current_ element ('element' being a row in your case) need not always be identical. However, this definitively concerns a different GUI toolkit - but then, in a way they all are comparable. Maybe it is worthwhile to check if 'selected' and 'current' (or 'active' or whatever) are necessarily synonyms. But in writing this it reminds me of an advice I gave to someone not too long ago (not C# though): If you can send key strokes to your app life may be a lot easier: - Send 'Home' to make sure you're at the 1st position, then - send as many 'down' keys as needed (just insert a small delay between key strokes). BTW this can also make menu traversal a lot easier. Well, that's all which came to mind - just guessing. I am off for today. Good luck Helmut Giese
From: Alvin Bruney - ASP.NET MVP on 6 Jan 2010 20:34 Clear this up for me, you are doing MSAA or MSAA through UIA, sounded like the latter, wasn't really sure. Are you sure it is a row? I seem to recall this being a dataitem in UIA -- Vapordan Shameless Author Plug ASP.NET 4 by Example only $20 OWC Blackbook www.lulu.com/owc "Steve" <sredmyer(a)yahoo.com> wrote in message news:5ec96a5b-a4cc-4e00-86d5-0334213a528c(a)j4g2000yqe.googlegroups.com... > I hope this is an appropriate group to post this question. If it is > not I would appreciate someone pointing out a more appriate group. > > I hope someone can help me with this as I have been fighting this > issue for several days now. > > I am writing an app which will automate some tedious manual work have > to do in my job. The way the solution will work is to basically > execute another application (third party commercial software package) > then perform actions (ie button pushes, menu item selections etc.) on > the UI elements of the newly started application. I have this > solution working for the most part utilizing MSAA to get references to > and manipulate the various UI elements of the applcation. However I > have one problem I have not been able to solve. This problem involves > what looks like a listview or grid control (although the class name > returned by Spy++ is WindowsForms10.Window.8.app3). What I am trying > to do is to step through the items (rows) in this grid/listview, > selecting the row, reading the text out of the first column then click > a button on the same parent as the grid/listview. Doing this sequence > of actions should cause the other app to open the selected document in > it's main window. As I said this is working for the most part. The > only problem I am having is the select of the item (row) which means > when I "click" the button I am always open the first document > (selected by default when the window opens) in the list. I can > correctly get the collection IAccessible objects referencing the rows > of the grid/listview and loop through that collection returning the > text in the first column of each. However when I attempt to force a > row to be selected...nothing hapens. > > Ok there is what I am trying to do and the problem I am having now > here is the code I am using. > > > // Get the list of row items from the project list > grid > Rows = ProjectList.GetChildren > (AccessibleUIItemType.Row); > > // Get the number of items in the list > numProjects = Rows.Count(); > > // Get the Row item associated with curProject > MSAAUIItem Row = Rows[curProject]; > > // Make sure this is the selected row > Row.Select(SelFlags.TAKEFOCUS | > SelFlags.TAKESELECTION); > // The statement above seems to have no effect > > // Get the project name. This will be the name of the > rows first child > ProjectName = Row.Properties.Name; > > All of the above statements except the Row.Select statement do excatly > what I would expect. > > Can anyone shed some light on what I might be doing wrong here. > > I also have a somewhat different (but related) question, why are none > of the windows in this application I am trying to automate "normal" > windows? They all seem to have this wierd "WindowsForms10.Window. > 8.app3" (or something similar) class where I would have expected > "SysListView32". > > Thanks in advance for any help > Steve
From: Steve on 7 Jan 2010 06:58 On Jan 6, 8:34 pm, "Alvin Bruney - ASP.NET MVP" <vapor...(a)hotmail.com> wrote: > Clear this up for me, you are doing MSAA or MSAA through UIA, sounded like > the latter, wasn't really sure. > > Are you sure it is a row? I seem to recall this being a dataitem in UIA > > -- > Vapordan > Shameless Author Plug > ASP.NET 4 by Example only $20 > OWC Blackbookwww.lulu.com/owc > > > - Show quoted text - I am doing plain MSAA (not MSAA via UI). It was neccessary to do this as a large percentage of the UI elements I needed access to are not seen by UI Automation (using UISpy). Yes I am sure it is a row item. This is according to AccExplorer. Thanks, Steve
From: Alvin Bruney - ASP.NET MVP on 11 Jan 2010 12:40
Can you provide a short but complete program that demonstrates the problem - see Jon Skeets post if you do not know what a short but complete program is: http://www.yoda.arachsys.com/csharp/complete.html > as a large percentage of the UI elements I needed access to are not > seen by UI Automation (using UISpy). Also, I don't understand what you mean by this. -- Vapordan Shameless Author Plug ASP.NET 4 by Example only $20 OWC Blackbook www.lulu.com/owc "Steve" <sredmyer(a)yahoo.com> wrote in message news:6505519a-385f-4978-b7c7-d9fcd35eda0c(a)22g2000yqr.googlegroups.com... > On Jan 6, 8:34 pm, "Alvin Bruney - ASP.NET MVP" <vapor...(a)hotmail.com> > wrote: >> Clear this up for me, you are doing MSAA or MSAA through UIA, sounded >> like >> the latter, wasn't really sure. >> >> Are you sure it is a row? I seem to recall this being a dataitem in UIA >> >> -- >> Vapordan >> Shameless Author Plug >> ASP.NET 4 by Example only $20 >> OWC Blackbookwww.lulu.com/owc >> >> >> - Show quoted text - > > I am doing plain MSAA (not MSAA via UI). It was neccessary to do this > as a large percentage of the UI elements I needed access to are not > seen by UI Automation (using UISpy). > > Yes I am sure it is a row item. This is according to AccExplorer. > > Thanks, > Steve |