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Telerik has always strived to make its products accessible and available to a wide range of people. It is part of Telerik's vision for providing leading developer products, just like browser support in our AJAX controls, right-to-left language support, localization, performance, and everything else that makes up excellent controls.

In the upcoming Q1 2011 RadControls for WinForms will implement Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) support which will make the Telerik WinForms controls the first suite to be compliant with the latest user interface accessibility and UI automation standards (FYI, in Q1 we will also extend our localization support and support for right-to-left languages to all of our controls).

MSAA is designed not only to help visually impaired people (in combination with Windows Narrator), but it is also a great automation tool, which Microsoft included in Visual Studio 2010. The automation allows developers to access and manipulate all UI elements in applications that support it. However, at this point only the standard Windows Forms controls have support for this technology, and it is quite limited.

Well, this is about to change with the Q1'11 release of RadControls for WinForms. With the new release you will be able to create a simple coded UI test using MSAA in a few mouse clicks (we are using RadListControl for the purpose of this demo). Here is how this will work:

1. Let's choose "Coded UI Test" from Visual Studio's Test menu. Press OK

Add New Test

2. Choose the first option -- "Record actions, edit UI map or add assertions"

Generate Code for Coded UI Test

3. Then, start an application using RadControls for Winforms - in our case this is a form with RadListControl.

Test

Yes, Visual Studio records our actions!

4. Once the test has been recorded, choose "Generate Code" from the Record window and then add a Debug.Assert call manually to check the value, for example, of the SelectedIndex property:

 

   1:  Mouse.Click(uIListItem1ListItem, new Point(47, 33));
   2:  Assert.AreEqual(this.UIRadListControlTestWindow.GetProperty("SelectedIndex"), 1);
 

5. Finally, select the test from Visual Studio and run the test in the current context.

After you execute these steps, you will see how Visual Studio's [automated] test opens the form and presses the second item of RadListControl. The test will fail if RadListControl SelectIndex is not equal to 1.
 

We know that many of you will be excited by these possibilities, so feel free to leave a comment. More goodies are coming to RadControls for WinForms for Q1 2011, so stay tuned for more info.


About the Author

Nikolay Diyanov

Diyanov is the Product Manager of the Native Mobile UI division at Progress. Delivering outstanding solutions that make developers' lives easier is his passion and the biggest reward in his work. In his spare time, Nikolay enjoys travelling around the world, hiking, sun-bathing and kite-surfing.

Find him on Twitter @n_diyanov or on LinkedIn.

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