uiClick

[PepsiHog]

Hello Everyone,

I wonder if someone can explain why this works. Yep, why it works.

Say you run an application. The first window is the parent window. You do some action like click a button. This causes a child window to pop up. Once this happens, if you click a button on the parent window (while the child window is still there.) the child window flashes or blinks. This is the child window saying, "You can't do that action until you deal with me!"

Now I am using uiClick. It clicks this, that and some other stuff. But an unexpected child window pops up. One that the macro isn't prepared for. You would expect that if the macro uses uiClick to click a button on the parent window, it would cause the child window to flash. But no. It actually is allowed and the button, whatever function it does, actually works!

Whaaat? What the hell?!

I like it. I just don't get how it is possible. I like it because now I can break the rules! But I am curious why this works.

Why does this work?

Thanks,
PepsiHog

[Marcus Tettmar]

No idea, but uiClick performs the default action. What that is and how the software responds is down to the guys or gals who developed it. And to us it's a black box. So frankly I have no idea. That's automation for you. You try stuff and see what works. We can't usually see the code and therefore can't usually say WHY something does or does not work.

[PepsiHog]

Thanks for responding, Marcus. I was thinking standard window stuff(rules). But I guess you're right. It depends on how they designed it.

But here's the riddle. After I posted this post the first time, I was wondering if I was just nuts. Maybe I didn't see what I thought I saw. So I made the "error" happen again. First, I did it manually. Maybe the child won't blink. Nope, it blinked. Then I recreated it with my macro. It didn't blink. So on one hand, they wrote it with the rule we would expect. But on the other hand....

As it turns out, regardless of the result, and the riddle, I'm still nuts! Amen! It's good to know some things stay the same, isn't it?

PepsiHog