New UI Automation framework!
The new UI automation framework UI Automation Next now in preview, brings quite a few changes, including no less than a paradigm shift in the way targets are added, configured, and verified. It’s a shift towards a more WYSIWYG way of working, by directly interacting with the automated application and the way robots “see” the interface.
This – plus a few other smaller updates – take us one step closer to the promise of no-code, reliable automations accessible to everybody.
It’s a major step, but there are a couple more equally big ones till we get to the destination, so stay tuned, and make sure you join the Preview Program to stay up to date with the latest developments and be able to influence the development.
Especially the 20.3 release in March will bring some important functional improvements
New Features and Improvements
New Selection Mode for Targets
To improve detection and offer a smoother and quicker experience, we have completely overhauled the way in which you indicate targets, using an anchor-based approach. The new selection mode offers more flexibility by letting you select, inspect, and clear the target, and add multiple anchors. Targets and anchors are now more visible during selection – targets are highlighted in green, while anchors are highlighted in blue.
Editing targets and anchors is now also performed using the selection mode. The selector, image, and text detection methods can be edited straight from the Selection Options window that is available during target selection. For more information, check out the StudioX guide.
Configure Project-wide Settings for UI Automation Next Activities
The Project Settings window now includes a tab where you can configure the settings of various properties for all the UI Automation Next activities in the project. Find out more in the StudioX guide.
Other Improvements
- The Click Before Typing property now lets you specify the type of click to perform in a field before typing: single-click or double-click.
- The Empty Field property can now be used for fields that have more than one line, or need a “different” type of clearing.
- When the target application for a Use Application/Browser activity is a web browser, the Input Mode property is set by default to Simulate. Please make sure you try it on your usecase and let us know if you encounter any issues.
- Enter Secure Text using the Type Into activity – You can now use the Type Into activity to enter sensitive text such as passwords securely. The Secure option enables you to select a saved for later SecureString value as the text to type. Find out more in the StudioX guide.
- For better clarity, the Extract Data activity has been renamed Extract Table Data .
- When the text to type in the Type Into activity contains special characters, the Input Mode used when executing the project is Hardware Events regardless of the setting configured for this property in the project.
- A new property named Arguments is available for the Use Application/Browser activity. Use this property to specify arguments to pass to the target application at startup.
New Activities
Check state
Verifies if a UI element exists and executes a set of activities if the element is found, and optionally another set of activities if the element is not found. [docs]
Keyboard shortcuts
Sends one or more keyboard shortcuts to the automated app. The shortcut recorder in the activity enables you to easily indicate the shortcuts using your keyboard. [docs]
Installation - Studio & StudioX
Go to Official feed and make sure to check Include Prerelease option when searching for “UIAutomationNext”, as for the moment is in Preview, and also make sure to remove old UiAutomationX & UIAutomation packages in case you have them installed.