Why does Coded UI Test Builder show MSAA for WPF controls instead of UIA

Question

Question

When I select a WPF control with the crossline of the Visual Studio 2010 Coded UI Test Builder (screenshots), it shows that the used accessibility technology was MSAA. Why is it not UIA?

Additional information

I am trying out the new Coded UI Test feature shipped with VS2010 and TFS2010.

I know that there are basically two UI accessibility technology from Microsoft:

• Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA): Older technology, COM
• Microsoft UI Automation (UIA): Newer technology, part of .NET 3.0, object model based

When I create a Coded UI Test and have a look at the generated code, I see that controls are clicked on based on pixel positions, instead of --what I would boldly expect-- handles to real objects.

I assume that kind of access makes the tests more fragile to relocation of UI elements. Whereas the tests would be more stable if UIA would be at work; as long as I don't change the UI tree, nothing should break.

What did I get wrong?

Answer 1

It's a known issue with Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate RC.

Answer 2

With respect to the "pixel positions" note in the original question. Most of the time the pixel coordinates are not needed. The control is found by searching through the hierarchy of controls on the screen. The recorded coordinates are within the control. This is needed for some complicated controls. For example. A button with a triangle to expand a set of options has two clickable areas: the main area and the triangle. See this MSDN blog entry for more details: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mathew_aniyan/archive/2012/03/16/faq-why-are-we-using-coordinate-based-actions-in-coded-ui-test.aspx