The scenario is following:
- inspect.exe finds focused element E
- get parent P of element E
- E is not a child of P
Tree walker methods GetParent, GetFirstChild, GetNextSibling are used to traverse the tree.
The aforementioned element E is a drop down list that appeared after the list was expanded.
The environment is as follows:
- Windows 10 with latest updates
- Application being automated is Windows Forms application
- CUIAutomation8 implementation
The application being automated has other peculiarity: when one tries to acquire AutomationId of an element belonging to that application it crashes.
I know that there were problems with inconsistent tree structures. There is even a tool that can verify contract on UI Automation implementation(VisualUIAVerifyNative).
The questions are following:
- is any way to get to that element E when traversing the tree from the root (e.g. such as enforce rebuilding the tree structure) ?
- is the problem specific to that application or just for whole Windows Forms client provider?
- is it possible for such problems to be fixed in upcoming Windows updates?
- is UI Automation being actively developed?