Interact with UI controls of Windows Store apps - user-interface

I am not able to identify UI controls of Windows Store apps using AutoIt Window Information Tool. The standard app Calculator for example (Windows 10):
As you can see, it doesn't show information for button 8. I tried both x86 and x64 versions.
How to interact with Windows Store apps? For traditional desktop apps AutoIt works as expected.

It's impossible, AutoIt developers have no plans to support UI Automation API. You can find Inspect.exe in your Windows SDK and run it in UIA mode to compare with AutoIt Info tool.
There are some other tools supporting UIA (TestStack.White (C#), Winium.Desktop (C#) and some direct UIA wrappers on other languages like pyuiautomation on Python). pywinauto 0.6.0 added MS UI Automation support.
UIA support for AutoIt; 24 Apr 2009 AutoIt forum thread. Plans may have changed, but it's the top result for a "AutoIt WPF support" Google search.

In order to use Autoit Window info tool in Win10 you should use 64bit version exe.
Au3Info_x64.exe
Common location is C:\Program Files (x86)\AutoIt3\Au3Info_x64.exe

Related

I am trying to develop an Add-In for Microsoft Word on macOS. I am not familiar with Microsoft doc, could somebody bring me in the right direction?

I am trying to develop an Add-In for Microsoft Word on macOS. The Windows version of the Add-In is already in development, but I don't have access to its source code. It seems like the following is the 'landing' page for developing Add-Ins for Office:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/add-ins/
The above documentation seems to say that Add-Ins have to developed using web-technologies, and, upon examination of existing, Third-party, Add-Ins, this seems to be the case at least for the UI. What I don't understand, is, if the entire plugin has to be written using web-oriented languages, or if there is a macOS oriented SDK that allows to implement at least the underlying logic using a macOS native SDK, perhaps using Objective-C or Swift. I was hoping that somebody more expert could bring me in the right direction. Thanks for your attention.
There is no platform specific SDK for developing Office add-ins. You can use web technologies for developing cross-platform Office add-ins, see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/add-ins/overview/office-add-ins for more information.
You also can use AppleScript for automating tasks in Word on the MacOS.

What tech stack was used to write Windows native applications like File Explorer?

I'm looking to write a Windows Explorer alternative application, such as FreeCommander.
What underlying language and tech-stack does Microsoft use to create native desktop applications for Windows, such as Windows File Explorer, Control Panel, Calculator, and so on?
Google search results point me towards one of UWP, WPF, WinForms, Java FX + Swing, Electron, Qt.
Given the following requirements:
the app should be as quick and responsive as the native File Explorer
in reading file metadata and opening files
the app should support file
previewing, and file operations -- renaming,
cutting/copying/pasting/moving etc.
the app needs to work on Win 10 at
the least, and support for previous Win version will be nice-to-have
the app should have the same right-click context menu items for files and
folders as the default File Explorer
the app should be mappable to a Windows hot key combo, such as ⊞ Win + F.
the app should be installable from a standard installer and not Microsoft Store
What should be my weapon of choice?
such as Windows File Explorer, Control Panel, Calculator, and so on
Windows Calculator is open-source, BTW. This should answer all of your questions. See for yourself. :)

Windows Forms application on Windows 10 tablets?

As part of an internship project, I am looking to deploy an application on PC (Windows 10) as well as on mobile digital media such as tablets.
I have some programming knowledge in VB.Net and have the Visual Basic 2010 Express IDE. Is a Windows Forms Application executable on Windows 10 tablets? If yes, are there compatibility issues (e.g. tactile events)? I am looking for the most suitable equipment for daily use for production monitoring operations. All the devices must have access to the same database to draw up daily reports from a master tool (a PC).
Is a Windows Forms Application executable on Windows 10 tablets?
Yes, Windows 10 tablets are able to run traditional Win32/.NET desktop applications. Please refer to the following article for more information about this: https://www.windowscentral.com/windows-10-arm-not-windows-rt.
As mentioned in the comments, you should be aware of the fact that tablet users may excpect a more touch friendly UI compared to what a traditional Windows Forms application may offer by default though.
If you intend to target only Windows 10+, you might want to to take a look at the Universal Windows Platform (UWP).

Merging Windows Forms Application - Win32 Project Application

Is there any way merging Windows Forms Application with Win32 Project Application (VS 2012), both written in Visual C++?
Windows Forms Application plays video (via vlc plugin) and Win32 Project Application displays the codes of a joypad (via a dialog box). I want an executable doing both. How can I achieve this?
If you use MFC, you should read the following article:
Integrate Windows Forms Into Your MFC Applications Through C++ Interop
And see here: Windows Forms and Unmanaged Applications Overview
If you just want to show a dialog, this should not be a problem; if you want to embedd a control, you should use ActiveX controls.
See also: http://www.gregcons.com/KateBlog/MixingMFCAndWinForms.aspx

VB macro or office addin for mac

Currently we developed a VB macro for word. While we tried to use it on mac it failed with message "VB Macro not supported in mac".
Is there a way to c# office add-in for mac?
My requirement is to have a simple utility to add comments(read from user) to the selected text in the current word document. Also need the functionality of the OpenFileDialog.
Mac Office does not (i.e. no longer) support COM/VBA automation. This means that you won't be able to use code from your existing Windows add-in.
In order to automate Mac Office you would have to make use of Automator Actions. I am not very familiar with these, but I believe that they are less feature-rich than the VBA object model of the Windows edition.
The following page has some Actions to get you started:
Microsoft Office Automator Actions
Update: It seems that the new Mac Office 2011 comes again with some support for VBA automation.

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