Metro Apps Automation in C#

After having done heck of research on how do I go about automating my Windows8 app, from among lot many third party tools to Windows UIA itself, I realized UIA was the way to go.

But then there are hardly any samples, that would help you get started with this. There are a couple available for Windows7, but Metro as we all know is a new world of its own.

This post would help you get started with Windows UI Automation for a Windows 8 (aka Metro) app, in C#, in just a few steps. All this information is actually gathered from a variety of tutorials, blogs, msdn links, forums, scattered all over the web and put together in this post.

You can create a Unit Test Project from

 Templates>Other Languages>Visual C# > Test > Unit Test Project

and your test cases would need all the below workflow, after which you can 'assert' all that you want to.

(I'm working on Visual Studio 2012, Ultimate )

1. Auto-launching of your app

This post I must say has been an amazing source of information. It also mentions how do you go about launching your app in C++.

The process and all the content stays true, but there is this below piece of code in C#, doing the same. "<appID>" here is the app ID of the application you want to launch.

 public static void launchApp()

 {

      ApplicationActivationManager appActiveManager =                                       

                              new ApplicationActivationManager();

      uint pid;

      appActiveManager.ActivateApplication("<appID>", 

                            null, ActivateOptions.None, out pid);

 }

public enum ActivateOptions

{

        None = 0x00000000,  

        DesignMode = 0x00000001,  

        NoErrorUI = 0x00000002,             

        NoSplashScreen = 0x00000004,  

}

[ComImport,Guid("2e941141-7f97-4756-ba1d-9decde894a3d"), InterfaceType(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIUnknown)]

interface IApplicationActivationManager

{

       IntPtr ActivateApplication([In] String appUserModelId, 

                                  [In] String arguments, 

                                  [In] ActivateOptions options, 

                                  [Out] out UInt32 processId);

       IntPtr ActivateForFile([In] String appUserModelId,

                     [In] IntPtr /*IShellItemArray* */ itemArray, 

                     [In] String verb, 

                     [Out] out UInt32 processId);

       IntPtr ActivateForProtocol([In] String appUserModelId, 

                     [In] IntPtr /* IShellItemArray* */itemArray,                      

                     [Out] out UInt32 processId);

 }

[ComImport, Guid("45BA127D-10A8-46EA-8AB7-56EA9078943C")]

//Application Activation Manager

class ApplicationActivationManager:IApplicationActivationManager

{

[MethodImpl(MethodImplOptions.InternalCall, MethodCodeType =  

                    MethodCodeType.Runtime)/*, PreserveSig*/]

public extern IntPtr ActivateApplication(

                           [In] String appUserModelId,

                           [In] String arguments,

                           [In] ActivateOptions options,              

                           [Out] out UInt32 processId);

[MethodImpl(MethodImplOptions.InternalCall, MethodCodeType =

                                     MethodCodeType.Runtime)]

public extern IntPtr ActivateForFile(

                      [In] String appUserModelId,

                      [In] IntPtr /*IShellItemArray* */itemArray, 

                      [In] String verb, 

                      [Out] out UInt32 processId);

       

[MethodImpl(MethodImplOptions.InternalCall, MethodCodeType = 

                                      MethodCodeType.Runtime)]      

public extern IntPtr ActivateForProtocol(

                     [In] String appUserModelId, 

                     [In] IntPtr /* IShellItemArray* */itemArray, 

                     [Out] out UInt32 processId);

 }

2. Accessing the controls :

You can inspect about the controls present in your app, using "Inspect.exe", available with Windows Kits. For me it is present at :

"C:\Program Files\x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\bin\x64".

Now for the below code to get working. Make sure to include these dll's beside the default ones : 

> PresentationCore.dll

> PresentationFramework.dll

> UIAComWrapper.dll [Most important]

> WpfUtilities.dll

I'm attaching them all here, for easy access or you can go ahead and search them in your Visual Studio installed location.

Below piece of code is just a sample to get you started to access any type of controls in your app. Here I'm just trying to find a button and click it.

(Note: All Windows UIA code would work just fine as seen in the msdn docs.)

//Gives you the root element i.e 'Desktop'

AutomationElement aeDesktop = AutomationElement.RootElement;

//Make a condition to find your app by 'NameProperty'

Condition appCondition = 

new PropertyCondition(AutomationElement.NameProperty, 

                    "MyApp", PropertyConditionFlags.IgnoreCase);

AutomationElement aeAppWindow =

                          aeDesktop.FindFirst(TreeScope.Children, 

                          appCondition);

AutomationElement aePane =

     aeAppWindow.FindFirst(TreeScope.Descendants,                                

     new PropertyCondition(AutomationElement.ControlTypeProperty,  

         ControlType.Pane));

            

AutomationElementCollection aeButtons = 

     aePane.FindAll(TreeScope.Descendants,

     new PropertyCondition(AutomationElement.ControlTypeProperty,

         ControlType.Button));

//Click on sample button

System.Drawing.Point p = aeButtons[3].GetClickablePoint();

Mouse.MoveTo(p);

Mouse.Click(MouseButton.Left);

Thread.Sleep(2000);

3. Closing your app

Hitting an 'Alt + F4' closes your app. You can do the same by this below line of code :

SendKeys.SendWait("%{F4}");

["SendKeys" is available in Systems.Windows.Forms dll]

That is all. You have now successfully automated a simple workflow of your Metro app. Good luck automating your next Windows app ! 

Post in your comments if you have any doubts or you find a better way of doing the same thing or better still, you find the post useful ! :)