In my last blog entry I described what the new Microsoft UI Automation (MUIA) library is. Now let me walk you through a very simple Hello World example for Microsoft UI Automation. Check out the image below to see where I’m headed. The screenshot shows I created a console application test harness which uses MUIA to test a simple .NET form-based application. Prepare the example by installing the .NET Framework version 3.0 on your machine if necessary. Begin by creating a simple .NET form-based application named HelloWorld at a directory named C:\MUIADemo which simply displays "Hello world" in textBox1 when button1 is clicked. Now create a new C# console application Project named TestAuto at C:\MUIADemo. In TestAuto, locate and add Project References to the UIAutomationClient.dll and UIAutomationTypes.dll libraries. Now add a "using System.Windows.Automation" statement to your code. Then add using statements to System.Diagnostics and System.Threading. Now type this code into the Main() method of your test harness:

Console.WriteLine("\nMUIA test automation demo \n");

Console.WriteLine("Launching app, clicking button1 now");

Process p =
  Process.Start("..\\..\\..\\HelloWorld\\bin\\Debug\\HelloWorld.exe");
Thread.Sleep(5000);
AutomationElement aeForm =
  AutomationElement.FromHandle(p.MainWindowHandle);
AutomationElement aeButton = aeForm.FindFirst(TreeScope.Children,
  new PropertyCondition(AutomationElement.NameProperty, "button1"));
AutomationElement aeTextBox = aeForm.FindFirst(TreeScope.Children,
  new PropertyCondition(AutomationElement.ControlTypeProperty,
    ControlType.Edit));
InvokePattern ipClickButton1 =
  (InvokePattern)aeButton.GetCurrentPattern(InvokePattern.Pattern);
ipClickButton1.Invoke();
Console.WriteLine("\n . . .check value in textBox1 and
  print pass/fail here");
Console.ReadLine();

 

Build and run your harness. Let me point out that this is just a simple example to get you started with Microsoft UI Automation. The code above has many problems and isn’t usable in a production environment. I just finished writing up a thorough introduction to Microsoft UI Automation for my monthly Test Run column which appears in MSDN Magazine and I’m hoping that the article will be printed sooner rather than later.