1. Overview​ #

Clicknium UIA automation is based on Microsoft UI Automation to support the recording function, generating locator, and all operations on UI elements.During recording, for the Windows applications, such as notepad, calculator, and ERP client applications, Clicknium will use UIA automation to record the element.

2. Locator attributes​ #

You can learn locator concept first. For UIA automation, the attributes are defined below:

Name	equals	contains	startWith	endWith	regex
Name	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
AutomationId	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
ClassName	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
HelpText	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Role	Yes	No	No	No	No
IsDirectChild	Yes	No	No	No	No
AccessKey	Yes	No	No	No	No
IsPassword	Yes	No	No	No	No
AcceleratorKey	Yes	No	No	No	No
ItemType	Yes	No	No	No	No
ItemStatus	Yes	No	No	No	No
Orientation	Yes	No	No	No	No
Index	Yes	No	No	No	No

3. Locator samples​ #

• notepad ‘format’ menuitem

<Application processName="notepad" filePath="notepad.exe" version="1.3" />
<Uia className="Notepad" isDirectChild="True" name="Untitled - Notepad" role="window" />
<Uia accessKey="Alt" automationId="MenuBar" isDirectChild="True" role="menuBar" />
<Uia accessKey="Alt+o" isDirectChild="True" name="Format" role="menuItem" />

• notepad ‘document’ area

<Application processName="notepad" filePath="notepad.exe" version="1.3" />
<Uia className="Notepad" isDirectChild="True" name="Untitled - Notepad" role="window" />
<Uia automationId="15" className="Edit" isDirectChild="True" role="document" />

• calculator button ‘5’

<Application processName="ApplicationFrameHost" filePath="Calculator.exe" version="1.3" />
<Uia className="ApplicationFrameWindow" isDirectChild="True" name="计算器" role="window" />
<Uia className="Windows.UI.Core.CoreWindow" isDirectChild="True" name="计算器" role="window" />
<Uia className="LandmarkTarget" isDirectChild="True" role="group" />
<Uia automationId="NumberPad" className="NamedContainerAutomationPeer" isDirectChild="True" role="group" />
<Uia automationId="num5Button" className="Button" isDirectChild="True" />

4. UIA element properties​ #

By find_element on one UIA locator, you can get one UIA element, and properties of the element by get_property.
Clicknium UIA supports the following properties:

Name	Description
Name	The name of the user interface.
IsEnabled	Whether the element is enabled in the user interface.
AccessKey	A string containing the access key character for the element.
AutomationId	A string containing the UI Automation identifier (ID) for the element.
BoundingRectangle	The coordinates of the rectangle that completely encloses the element.
ProcessId	The process identifier (ID) of the element.
ItemType	The description of the item type.
IsPassword	Whether the UI Automation element contains protected content.
IsOffscreen	Whether the UI Automation element is visible on the screen(true when the control is not visible; otherwise false).
AcceleratorKey	A string containing the accelerator key combinations for the element.
HelpText	The help text of the element.
IsKeyboardFocusable	Whether the UI Automation element can accept keyboard focus.
IsContentElement	Whether the element is a content element.
IsControlElement	Whether the element is viewed as a control.
HasKeyboardFocus	Whether the element has keyboard focus.
FrameworkId	The name of the UI framework, such as “Win32”, “WinForm”, or “DirectUI”. The default value is an empty string.
ControlType	The ControlType of the element.