Attach Meaning?

I’m following some online tutorials and I just got introduced to the Attach Window/Browser features. Is the purpose of “Attaching” to just identify which application you want to perform an action on? My question stems from why you can’t just perform subsequent actions in the “Do” stage of an “Open Application” function?

attach is a type of ‘container’, which has the effect, as you say, of specifying which window you are performing actions within.

open browser/application is also a container and acts in almost exactly the same way, only it opens it as well as ‘attaching’ to it.

containers are used for a few different reasons:

  • they hold the first like of a full selector, which means that any actions within that container only need a partial selector, this is useful particularly if you have to edit that part of the selector to make it more generic, you only have to do it in one place
  • some actions can only be performed inside of a container like this, such as the ‘navigate to’ activity
  • it can be a more robust method of development to attach to the specific window when you perform actions, particularly if you have multiple windows of the same application where there is a risk UiPath may get confused on which window to use…
  • if you prefer to use containers, you will almost certainly have to use attaches because you may be coming back to an already opened application (where you used an open application earlier in the workflow) and therefore another open application would be inappropriate, in that case if you want to use a container you would have to use an attach

i hope that all helps!

Hi @mostrong,

The Attach Window / Browser identifies the parent window under which you will execute the activities in the sequence. It creates a container that allows you to generate a full selector just for the Attach Window/Browser. Moreover, the activities that you place in the Do sequence can have a partial selectors. I guess it is much faster using the Attach Window/Browser than the Open Application.

Hello Fer,

Since you mention it identifies the parent window, is an example of the Attach Window function navigating to a certain tab or page of a system? For example if you launch a browser, but there are several tabs on that browser you can apply the Attach Browser function to navigate to the applicable tab and execute your “Do” functions there?

Thanks!

@mostrong, I think you have to find a suitable selector. By checking the name attribute of the tab.

This topic was automatically closed 3 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.