What's New in UI Automation? (Windows)

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Many new features were added to the Microsoft UI Automation API for Windows 8. They fall into these categories:

Support for Text-based Controls
Support for Drag-and-Drop Elements
Support for the System Caret
Support for Live Regions
Support for Windowless ActiveX Controls
Support for Handling Unresponsive Applications
New Provider Functions
Miscellaneous New Client Methods
Related topics

Support for Text-based Controls

Many new API elements were added to improve UI Automation support for text-based controls. Providers can use the new API elements to expose rich information about the content of text-based controls, and clients can access the rich information and use it to create a better experience for users of accessibility tools.

The following sections list the new UI Automation API elements for text-based controls.

Provider Interfaces

Client Interfaces

Automation Element Property Identifier

UIA_OptimizeForVisualContentPropertyId

Control Pattern Identifiers

Control Type Identifiers

UIA_AnnotationPatternId

Control Pattern Availability Property Identifiers

Control Pattern Property Identifiers

Annotation Type Identifiers

Text Attribute Identifiers

Style Identifiers

For information about how to implement and use the new API elements that support text-based controls, see these topics:

Support for Drag-and-Drop Elements

These new API elements expose information about elements that can be dragged as part of a drag-and-drop operation, and elements that can be the drop target of a drag-and-drop operation:

Drag-and-Drop Interfaces

Drag-and-Drop Control Pattern Identifiers

Drag-and-Drop Control Pattern Availability Property Identifiers

Drag-and-Drop Control Pattern Property Identifiers

Drag-and-Drop Event Identifiers

Support for the System Caret

These new API elements support exposing information about the system caret:

CaretBidiMode enumeration
CaretPosition enumeration
ITextProvider2::GetCaretRange method
IUIAutomationTextPattern2::GetCaretRange method
UIA_CaretBidiModeAttributeId attribute identifier
UIA_CaretPositionAttributeId attribute identifier

Support for Live Regions

These new API elements support exposing information about Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) live regions:

EVENT_OBJECT_LIVEREGIONCHANGED structure
IUIAutomationElement2::CachedLiveSetting property
IUIAutomationElement2::CurrentLiveSetting property
UIA_LiveRegionChangedEventId event identifier
UIA_LiveSettingPropertyId property identifier

Support for Windowless ActiveX Controls

Windows 8 includes these new Windows Accessibility API interfaces that simplify the task of implementing accessibility for windowless Microsoft ActiveX controls:

For more information, see Windowless ActiveX Control Accessibility.

Support for Handling Unresponsive Applications

These new properties enable a UI Automation client application to better detect and respond to an unresponsive provider:

New Provider Functions

These new UI Automation provider functions were added in Windows 8:

Miscellaneous New Client Methods

These new UI Automation client methods were added in Windows 8.

IUIAutomation2::AutoSetFocus method
IUIAutomationElement2CachedOptimizeForVisualContent property
IUIAutomationElement2CurrentOptimizeForVisualContent property

What's New in UI Automation?