22 January, 2008 by Cesar Serna Categories :
DotNet

Application Automation

Visual Studio 2008Unwrapping Visual Studio 2008 has been exciting as I have been looking forward to several new features and development environment updates. One of the great new features I hope to put into immediate use is the UI Automation now available in the .Net 3.0 framework.

So what is UI Automation?

Here is Microsoft’s description:

“Microsoft UI Automation is the new accessibility framework for Microsoft Windows, available on all operating systems that support Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF).

UI Automation provides programmatic access to most user interface (UI) elements on the desktop, enabling assistive technology products such as screen readers to provide information about the UI to end users and to manipulate the UI by means other than standard input. UI Automation also allows automated test scripts to interact with the UI.”

So what does this mean in plain english?

This means you can now write a .Net application that can automate and manipulate both managed(.Net) and unmanaged(C++) existing applications you own and use.

Why is this such great news?

Well if you have developed a .Net application or have had one developed for you, this means that you can now do a few more things with that old app:

  • QA: The obvious is test several scenarios upfront in order to catch, report and debug faster.
  • Flexibility: Instead of having to shell out cash to have your application re-programmed to allow automation you can now have it automated externally and generate reports, notifications, etc…
  • Creativity: Daisy chain a set of applications to fire in sequence instead of re-creating a monster new application.

The big test that I would like to run is the automation of several non .Net applications that I use frequently and see what happens.

If you are interested you can download the express edition of Visual Studio 2008 and find examples of the UI Automation code at MSDN.


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