UI Explorer
UI Explorer is an advanced tool that enables you to create a custom selector for a specific UI
element. It is available as a standalone tool you can download from the Resource Center in your
Automation Cloud instance, or from Studio only if the UiPath.UIAutomation.Activities
package is installed as a dependency to the project.
Using UI Explorer as a standalone tool does not require you to install Studio. This comes in handy
when you want to make sure that an application can be automated with selectors. It enables you to
simply inspect elements without building a process. The standalone package also contains the
SetupExtensions utility, thus making it possible to install browser extensions and the JavaBridge to
inspect elements across all your automation needs.
To open the UI Explorer window, click the button in the Selectors section, in the Design tab, or from
the advanced editor in the selection screen of all the selectors of the target and anchors attributes,
after indicating the target UI element.
NOTE: If you do not have the UiPath.UIAutomation.Activities pack installed as a
dependency for the current project, the UI Explorer button does not appear in the Ribbon.
Alternatively, the UI Explorer can be launched from the Tools page in the Studio backstage view. UI
Explorer from the context menu uses the UI automation libraries shipped with the current version of
Studio.
NOTE: The version of the UI Automation package that is currently used is displayed in the lower right
corner in the UI Explorer you have opened. This version varies, as launching the UI Explorer from the
Tools page uses the default UI Automation version shipped with the Studio version you are using,
while opening UI Explorer from the Ribbon uses the version you have installed as a dependency for
the current project.
To be sure that you choose the best selector, remember to:
● Add or remove attributes
● Add parent or children tags
● Use wild cards to replace changing values
●
Field Descriptions for the UI Explorer Window
Field Description
Validate The button shows the status of the selector by checking the validity of the
selector definition and the visibility of the target element on the screen.
The Validate button has three states:
● Selector is being validated
● Valid selector
● Invalid selector
● Modified selector, revalidate
Indicates a new UI element to replace the previous one.
Indicate Enables you to choose an anchor relative to the target UI element.
Anchor
Repair Enables you to re-indicate the same target UI element and repair the
selector. This operation does not completely replace the previous
selector. The button is available only when the selector is invalid.
Highlight Brings the target element in the foreground. The highlight stays on until
it's switched off. The button is enabled only if the selector is valid.
Inspect Opens the Event Inspection Tool.
Events
Options Contains several options:
● UI Frameworks - Changes the technology used to determine UI
elements and their selectors. The following options are available:
● Default – UiPath proprietary method. Usually works fine
with all types of user interfaces.
First try to generate a selector using the appropriate
UiPath extensions or connectors (e.g.
browser/remote/Java extension, SAP connector, etc.).
If that is not possible, try to generate a selector using
Active Accessibility (preferred for most desktop
applications) or UI Automation (preferred for Office
applications).
● Active Accessibility – An earlier solution from Microsoft
for making applications accessible. It is recommended
that you use this option with legacy software, when the
Default one does not work.
Try to generate a selector using Active Accessibility, and
skip UiPath extensions or connectors.
To find out if a selector uses the Active Accessibility
technology, you have to look for ctrl tags. Specifically,
the sub-string <ctrl. In XAML, you might find that
encoded as <ctrl.
● UI Automation – The improved accessibility model from
Microsoft. It is recommended that you use this option
with newer applications, when the Default one does not
work.
Try to generate a selector using UI Automation, and skip
UiPath extensions or connectors.
NOTE: Currently this framework does not support Chrome
or Edge web pages and instead it generates wnd
selectors, rather than falling back to the extension.
Click here to read more about Active Accessibility and UI Automation.
● Delayed Restore - Delay restoring the UI Explorer window until
after the selector data is loaded. Use this option when indicating
UI elements that auto-close on focus lost, such as drop-downs or
overlays.
● Trigger Selector - Ensures the uniqueness of a UI element within
its parent while increasing its monitoring accuracy. Use this
option when generating selectors for trigger activities.
The Visual Tree Panel
Displays a tree of the UI hierarchy and enables you to navigate through it, by clicking the arrows in
front of each node.
By default, the first time when you open UI Explorer, this panel displays all opened applications, in
alphabetical order.
Double-clicking a UI element (or right-clicking and selecting Set as Target Element) from the tree,
populates the Selector Editor, Selector Attributes and Property Explorer panels.
Field Description
Highlight Highlights the selected element from the Visual Tree in real time. The
highlight stays on until it's switched off.
Show Displays the search box and search filter options.
Search
Options
Search Box Enables you to look for a specific string. If an exact match is not found,
nodes containing the nearest match are displayed.
Wildcards are supported.
Depending on the attribute selected from the Search by drop-down list,
the search can be case sensitive.
NOTE: The search only looks for matches in the tree structure under the
selected UI object.
Search by Filters your search to a selected attribute or a selector. The contents of
this drop-down list change according to the selected UI element.
NOTE: If Search by is set to Selector, you can only input one node in the
<attribute name1='value1' ... /> format.
Children Limit your search to the first level children of the selected node. By
Only default, this check box is not selected.
The Selector Editor Panel
Displays the selector for the specified UI object and enables you to customize it.
The bottom part of the panel displays the actual XML fragment that you have to use in a project.
Once you find the selector you want, you can copy it from here and paste it in the Properties panel of
an activity, in the Selector field.
The top part of this panel enables you to view all the nodes in a selector and eliminate the ones that
are not necessary by clearing the check box in front of them. An element in the list of selector nodes
becomes active when you enable or disable an attribute, or when editing a selector in the bottom
panel. Only one node is active at a time.
Selecting a node here displays its attributes in the Selector Attributes and Property Explorer panels.
Selectors can also be edited with the aid of variables, either by using the CTRL+K hotkey to create a
variable in the selector itself, or by specifying an already created variable with the CTRL+Space
combination. Using the CTRL+K hotkey enables you to specify a value and a name for the variable.
Please note that only string variables can be used.
The Selector Attributes Panel
Displays all the available attributes of a selected node (from the Selector Editor panel).
You can add or eliminate some of the node attributes by selecting or clearing the check box in front
of each attribute.
Additionally, you can change the value of each attribute yet this modification is retained only if the
new selector points at the originally selected UI object.
The Property Explorer Panel
Displays all the attributes that a specified UI object can have, including the ones that do not appear
in the selector. They cannot be changed.
Event Inspection Tool
In the context of trigger-based attended automation, the Event Inspection Tool can be used to
identify the type of native events triggered when you interact with certain UI elements in an
application, and then it can be used for configuring the Application Event Trigger activity. The tool
captures and monitors all the selected event types, such as Click, Key pressed, Focus gained, Focus
lost, and other relevant interactions, enabling you to analyze the actions performed and, if applicable,
diagnose issues.
The Event Inspection Tool can be opened from the UI Explorer, once a valid UI element is selected, by
clicking the Inspect Events toolbar button.
The toolbar consists of the following options:
● Record - The events generated by interacting with the UI element are recorded and added to
the events list.
● Pause - The events generated by the UI element when you interact with it are no longer
recorded.
● Highlight - Shows the contour of the target element and brings it to the foreground for a few
seconds. The highlight stays on until it is disabled.
● Open in UI Explorer - The monitored element is opened in UI Explorer where you can observe
the selector of that element.
Once you start event recording, two more options become available:
● Clear - Deletes all the recorded events.
● CSV - The captured events can be exported to a .csv file for further analysis.
The Event Inspection Tool window has two main sections:
● Event filter - Allows selecting the types of events you want to monitor for the target element.
● Event list - Displays information about captured events.
You can filter event types to be captured by enabling or disabling the checkboxes from the list of
event types. The list may vary based on the selected element technology.
All mouse event types (Mouse move, Mouse pressed, Mouse released, Mouse entered, Mouse
exited), specific for Web or Java UI elements, are disabled by default because the event list, in such
cases, can become quite large. Our recommendation is to enable the mouse event types only if you
have a specific need to monitor them.
It is worth also mentioning that event types can be enabled or disabled even after you started the
event recording.
The event list has three columns:
● Event Name - The event type.
● Time Stamp - The date and hour when the event was performed.
● Event Data - The associated data and parameters for a certain event.
Each column can be sorted in ascending or descending order. The events are displayed by default in
the order they were performed.
When the disappeared event type is found, you can no longer continue monitoring, and an error
message is displayed on the screen. When clicking any option from the toolbar, the same error
message is displayed on the screen. The only available options are to either clear the data or export
it to a .csv file. To start monitoring again, close the window and open another instance of the Event
Inspection Tool.
