Window Detection

When you record a wizard, Studio stores a set of properties about each window on which an action was taken. Window detection is the name of the process that occurs when the wizard uses this information at runtime to determine the correct window on which to act. The data used for windows detection can be viewed and accessed for editing from the Window tab of the Flow Pane. The window properties collected for each step differ based on the type of application recorded:

For information about how to edit window detection properties, see Editing Window Properties.

Window properties

Each window property contains the following components:

  • Property checkbox: Determines whether this property will be included or ignored during window detection

  • Condition dropdown list: Options that determine which part of the text field will be included or ignored during window detection. The condition dropdown list contains the following options:

    • Equals: The property of the detected window must equal the exact text string appearing in the text field. This is the default value.

    • Contains: The property of the detected window must contain the exact text string appearing in the text field, either on its own or as part of a longer string (at the beginning, middle, or end). This becomes the default value after you make a change to the property's text field.

    • Begins with: The property of the detected window must begin with the exact text string appearing in the text field, either on its own or followed by other text

    • Ends with: The property of the detected window must begin with the exact text string appearing in the text field, either on its own or preceded by other text

    • Use wildcards: The property of the detected window must equal the exact text string appearing in the text field; however, the following characters can be used in the text string to replace any character or string of characters:

      • An asterisk (*) represents one or more characters (or no character)

      • A question mark (?) represents any single character

    • Use regular expression: The property of the detected window must match the pattern represented by the regular expression appearing in the text field

  • Text Field: Contains the text string that the robot will look for in order to detect the window property, qualified by one of the conditions from the condition dropdown list

What is a regular expression?

Often, when you search for data in a text, you are looking for all the text that matches a certain pattern, rather than for specific text itself. A regular expression (often abbreviated regex) is a sequence of characters that represents the pattern you are searching for.

  • To learn more about regular expressions, see this article on the Microsoft Developer Network.

  • For an online regex tester and reference, check out this website: regular expressions 101.