How to design a Windows Form like interface

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1

Hi,

I know this is not very conventional for RPA. I’m just wondering if it’s possible to design a windows form like interface in UI Path.

Say, for example I would like the user to feed an excel spreadsheet which will be used by automation.

Sample GUI: (Apologies if it does look decent)

_________________________________________________________________________
Enter Excel Path to Read: | (Path - texbox) | | Browse... |
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
| OK |
_________________________________________________________________________

Clicking Browse button will open a File Dialog box, then user can locate the excel file. Path textbox above is uneditable and will be populated by exact path that user nominated.
Clicking OK button will set the Workbook path of Excel Application Scope and run the automation.

Is this possible? If not, is there an alternative?

Thanks

2

Check Select File Activity.

3

Thanks for the response. I see that it opens File dialog on runtime. This might suffice but would also like to know if it’s possible to design perhaps a windows like interface with label, textboxes, button, etc? This way it will be more user-friendly.

Thanks

4

I’m thinking you would need to create your form outside of UiPath with your preferred method, like VB, Visual Studio, Powershell, html, Excel/Word, etc. Then utilize it with UiPath with arguments using the Start Process activity.

2 Likes
5

Yes, that’s the most reliable way.
@uipath_test see also here for some examples from @Florent_Salendres

1 Like
6

As a last resort, you can use something like this to guide your user in a slightly better informative way.

selectFiles.xaml (12.2 KB)

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7

Thanks andrzej.

I see from post mentioned that it uses “Invoke Code”. I downloaded the latest version of community edition (2016.2.6379) and it only has Invoke Method.

Also, is it possible to store the value selected by user to variable in “Invoke Code” then afterwards will be retrieved outside by “Excel Application Scope”

Thanks

8

It’s available from 2017.1 and yes, it should be possible to pass the values through arguments (similar to an InvokeWorkflow). I haven’t used it first hand though, so that’s an educated guess.

You can always build a custom activity that would contain the form (search for Custom Activity in Knowledge base), or build a series of activities like @vvaidya attached (nice one, btw). It all depends on how you want to accomplish it in the end.

9

Thanks vvaidya. Appreciate the sample code you had provided. This is a good solution if there are only few parameters. But as number of parameter increases, it might be inconvenient for the user.
If windows form is not possible, guess this will be the only option. Thanks

10

Earlier, I used this link to download the latest Community Edition (Free Edition):
https://www.uipath.com/community-edition-download

Version that appear is 2016.2.6379. Just to confirm, is version 2017.1 not available on Community edition?

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