I've tried nearly anything, The "Type Into" activity won't print plain text into the text box let alone a held variable. The textbox element in question is the update work items comment box in the acme-test website from the Level 3 RPA developer course. I am able to type into the box manually and the robot is able to find it (the cursor moves to the centre of the text box and the program continues). I've tried quite a lot, including using a click activity and then sending the string as hotkeys.
Most probably the issue is related to your selectors. Since you are on level 3 RPA developer course I assume you are using Reframework for the task and I believe because of comprehensive error handling capabilities of this template your application just continuous with the next item instead of crashing when it can't find the element.
To solve the selector issues I usually do the following:
Use partial selectors instead of full selectors
Use wildcards for dynamic parts of your selectors (* for replacing any number of characters, ? for replacing exactly 1 character)
You can also store the page you are working on in a Uipath.Core.Browser type variable to eliminate the need of reselecting browser.
Also keep in mind that if you have used basic recorder functionality of UI path it generates full selectors.
Basically, I want to bind a certain letter to scroll up the mouse reel, and do so continuously if I hold the key continuously. I need it to work even if other keys are being pressed at the same time, and only work on a certain window title/tab title in the browser.
I basically want to emulate the function of the autohotkey program for the "Attack On Titan Tribute Game"'s reeling function.
An AutoHotKey equivalent is available at:
http://fenglee.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7548
(Which may be offline due to unknown reasons, might have to wait)
Basically, if you download the application, set Reel In to the "x" or "e" key, it works regardless if other keys are being held. Just make sure you uncheck the checkbox so it can work in any window. It basically scrolls down for you. It also includes the source.
Or.. if I can use any other free application to do the same thing, that'd be nice.
All I want is the scrolling function and it has to be specific to a window/plugin/etc. and be able to be triggered while holding down other keys.
I am building a GUI in Netbeans - it is for a simple little application - a converter program. Basically, user types whatever it is they want to convert into a text field, selects the conversion from a number of radio buttons (say lbs to kg) and then clicks "Convert".
The thing is, I want the "Convert" button and the radio buttons to behave like this:
Radio buttons and "Convert" button are disabled when program loads.
Radio buttons and "Convert" button will become enabled if user types a number (and only a number) into the text field.
If used deletes what they have typed, everything will be disabled again until they type in another number.
I have managed to set the Radio buttons and "Convert" button up so they are disabled, by unchecking the "enabled" box in the properties for each component. I have also been able to use a simple if statement and the keyTyped event to enable/disable as follows:
private void txtUsrInputKeyTyped(java.awt.event.KeyEvent evt)
{
if (!txtUsrInput.getText().equals(""))
{
btnCalculate.setEnabled(true);
}
else
{
btnCalculate.setEnabled(false);
}
}
I want to extend my code so that if the user accidentally types a letter or symbol into the text field (don't ask me why they'd do that, when they know they must only type a number) then the program will either ignore what they typed, or display an error. The exception to this is, of course, typing a period (.) because they might want to indicate a decimal number.
Any thoughts on how I might do this? Hope what I wrote makes sense!
Your GUI
If you do not already know swing, then learn it. Knowing how all of the components work is always a huge advantage for any developer, and if anything goes wrong, you know exactly how to fix it (or at least have a much better chance). Take a look at this stuff, for some help on getting started.
Checking for a decimal
This looks like a job for regular expressions. What you can do is specify a number [0-9], and a period, \.. Then ensure that either a number or a decimal is typed a certain amount of times. The important thing to note here though, is that the user can only type one decimal, which winds up being:
([0-9]+(\.[0-9]+))
This will allow values like 9, 0.9, 1.9302. It will not allow values like .901. If you wish to allow that, simple swap the first + for a *.:
([0-9]*(\.[0-9]+))
Using it
Because a text box contains a string, you can compare it with your regex. Simply:
if(textBox1.getText().matches("([0-9]+(\.[0-9]+))")) {
// Run some code in here.
}
Well, if GUI is simple, DO NOT use GUI Builder, but code from scratch. Following harder path, you will learn about layouts, actionlisteners and so on ...
I have a bit of a challenge.
In an earlier version of our product, we had an error message window (last resort, unhandled exception) that showed the exception message, type, stack trace + various bits and pieces of information.
This window was printscreen-friendly, in that if the user simply did a printscreen-capture, and emailed us the screenshot, we had almost everything we needed to start diagnosing the problem.
However, the form was deemed too technical and "scary" for normal users, so it was toned down to a more friendly one, still showing the error message, but not the stack trace and some of the more gory details that I'd still like to get. In addition, the form was added the capabilities of emailing us a text file containing everything we had before + lots of other technical details as well, basically everything we need.
However, users still use PrintScreen to capture the contents of the form and email that back to us, which means I now have a less than optimal amount of information to go on.
So I was wondering. Would it be possible for me to pre-render a bitmap the same size as my form, with everything I need on it, detect that PrintScreen was hit and quickly swap out the form contents with my bitmap before capture, and then back again afterwards?
And before you say "just educate the users", yes, that's not going to work. These are not out users, they're users at our customers place, so we really cannot tell them to wisen up all that much.
Or, barring this, is there a way for me to detect PrintScreen, tell Windows to ignore it, and instead react to it, by dumping the aformentioned prerendered bitmap onto the clipboard ready for placing into an email?
The code is C# 3.0 in .NET 3.5, if it matters, but pointers for something to look at/for is good enough.
Our error-reporting window has these capabilities:
Show a screenshot that was taken when the error occured (contains all the open windows of the program at the time, before the error dialog was shown)
Show a text file containing every gory detail we can think of (but no sensitive stuff)
Save the above two files to disk, for latter attaching to an email or whatnot by the user
Sending the above two files to us by email, either by opening a new support case, or entering an existing support case number to add more information to it
Ignore the problem and hope it goes away (return to app)
Exit the application (last resort)
We still get screenshots from some users. Not all, mind you, so my question is basically how I can make the PrintScreen button help us a bit more for those users that still use it.
One option: Put the stack trace and other scary stuff into the error screen using small, low-contrast type -- e.g. dark gray on light gray -- so that the user doesn't really even see it, but the Print Screen captures it.
But if you want to detect the PrintScreen and do your own thing, this looks like an example of what you want.
Wouldn't it be possible to disable the Print Screen button altogether when the error popup is active? Have it display a message along the lines of "Please use the clearly visible button in the middle of your screen to report the error" I agree it breaks expected functionality, but if your users are really that stupid, what can you do...
Alternatively, have it report errors automatically (or store the data locally, to be fetched later, if you can't send without asking for some reason), without asking the user. If you want to be able to connect print screened screenshots with detailed error data, have it send a unique ID with the data that's also displayed in the corner of the popup.
What about offering them a "Print Screen" button that performs these actions as well as performing the print screen? If you're locked into this method of having your customers send error details, this may be an easier route to take.
Lifted from my comment below for easier reference (looks helpful, perhaps):
codeproject.com/KB/cs/PrintScreen.aspx
This is in theory...the best way to deal with it I would think
Intercept a WM_PRINT message or inject one into your process... see this article here
Install a system-wide keyboard hook and intercept the print-screen key and swap it around with your contents prior to the capture. Now, I can point you to several places for this, here on CodeProject, and here also, keyboard spy, and finally, global Mouse and keyboard hook on CodeProject.
Now, once you intercept the print screen, invoke the WM_PRINT message by capturing the contents that you want to capture.
I know this is brief and short, but I hope this should get you going.
The only solution i came up with was to offer big, large, easy to read toolbar buttons that give the user every opportunity to save the contents of the error dialog:
Save
Copy to clipboard
Send using e-mail
Print
And after all that, i use the Windows function SetWindowDisplayAffinity in order to show the user a black box where the form should be:
This function and GetWindowDisplayAffinity are designed to support the window content protection feature that is new to Windows 7. This feature enables applications to protect their own onscreen window content from being captured or copied through a specific set of public operating system features and APIs. However, it works only when the Desktop Window Manager(DWM) is composing the desktop.
It is important to note that unlike a security feature or an implementation of Digital Rights Management (DRM), there is no guarantee that using SetWindowDisplayAffinity and GetWindowDisplayAffinity, and other necessary functions such as DwmIsCompositionEnabled, will strictly protect windowed content, for example where someone takes a photograph of the screen.
If their screenshots show a big black box, hopefully they'll get the hint.
I did add a defeat, if they hold down shift while clicking "show error details", i don't add the protection during form construction:
//Code released into public domain. No attribution required.
if (!IsShiftKeyPressed())
SetWindowDisplayAffinity(this.Handle, WDA_MONITOR); //Please don't screenshot the form, please e-mail me the contents!
I would like, if for no other reason that an academic exercise, to be able to read text written to a form on a Windows Application. The program appears to be written in non-.NET, but in .NET terms, I think you would describe the program as having a Form with a Label and I would like to read the text from that label.
I believe I can see that text being written to the screen with the User32!TextOut (and in other areas User32!DrawString) function. However, it would be nice if I didn't have to hook that function to get the information I'm looking for, but instead if I could just read it from the form directly.
So, given a handle to a Window, is it possible to read the text that has been written to that window with functions like TextOut and DrawString using some similar API or other clever means?
Or am I going about this the wrong way? Should I just hook the function and look for the text in every call and pray?
Thanks!
If the text is stored in the standard way on the control you can use SendMessage
Win32.SendMessage(controlHandle, Win32.WM_GETTEXTLENGTH, 0, null);
If the control was written with security in mind, the text is almost certainly not stored in a format that can be queried through the Windows API.
I used to use a program called Snadboy Revelation to grab forgotten passwords out of programs (that were just displaying as *****). Revelation uses the same technique. However, most modern software hides the text of password and similar fields so this is not of as much use these days.
UPDATE:
Found source code for a Windows Spy app.