Desktop Recorder

Record your Windows workflow using Desktop Automation Recorder

Recording

Desktop Recorder works in two modes.

1. Manual

2. Automatic

The manual mode allows you to add new steps manually.

The Automatic mode records all the user actions automatically and creates a list of steps with UI elements, user action and the text inputs from the user.

Actions

There are four types of actions in Desktop Recorder. But only Desktop Action (or simply 'Action') is recorded in automatic mode.

1. Desktop Action

2. Store Variable Action

3. If Condition Action

4. Wait Condition Action

Desktop Action

A simple action performed on a UI Element.

see Desktop Actions for more info

Store Variable Action

Get the specified property from an UI Element and stores it in a Variable.

see Desktop Element Properties and Variables for more info

Nested Actions

If Element Condition Action and Wait Condition Actions can have child actions creating nested actions.

nested actions in Desktop Recorder

If Condition Action

Checks for a condition with a UI Element and executes nested actions if true.

see Conditions for more details

Wait Condition Action

Waits for a condition with UI Element to become true until timeout, then executes the nested actions. If timeout expires, the nested actions will not be executed. The timeout is given in the format hh:mm:ss

see Conditions for more details

Elements

Elements pane in Desktop Recorder

A Desktop Element contains the hierarchy of the target element from its ancestors. This hierarchy is used during playback to find the target element.

The 'Desktop' is the root element for all Desktop Elements.

Adding Elements

Elements are added automatically during recording. An element can be added manually by clicking the Add Element From Screen Button in Elements Pane or in the Element selector dropdowns present in all the steps which takes an Element as an input.

Editing Elements

Elements can be edited by clicking the Edit button in the elements pane. This will open the Desktop Element Selector Editor Window which shows all the added elements in the recording.

See Desktop Element Selector Editor for more details.

Element Properties

The following are the properties of a Desktop Element.

Automation Properties

• NameProperty The Name of the element.

• ClassName The Class name of the element.

• Automation Id The Automation Id of the element

• Index The position of the element inside its parent with respect to its siblings

• ControlType The type of the element. See Control Types__
• Parent The Parent element

• Children The Child elements of the element.

Other Properties

• Name The user provided name of element. This is autogenerated when a new element is added.

• Process Id The Process Id of the elements parent process.

Variables

All User Created Variables in studio appears in the variables pane in Desktop Recorder. And user can create new Variables from inside the recorder using the Add Variable Button. This will open the Create Variable Popup. Only string variables can be created from Desktop Recorder.

Using Variables in Recorder

Variables are assigned to the variable input in Store Variable Action. In addition to that variables can be given in the text input fields of Type and KeyInput actions. Following rules are used for distinguishing Variables from strings.

1. Text given inside two double-quote (") characters are considered as normal string.

2. Text given without two double-quote (") characters around are considered as a Variable.

3. Text given inside two backquote (`) characters are considered for Variable replacement. Variables are placed inside curly braces ({}) following a dollar ($) character.

Conditions

A Condition is a statement which always evaluates to either True or False. All Condition Actions evaluate a condition before executing its inner steps (only if the condition is true). There are two types of condition

1. Element

2. Boolean

Element Condition

Checks for a condition with the element. This can be checking if an Element is in a particular state or have a specific value. Element conditions are used inside If Condition Action and Wait Condition Action.

see Desktop Element Conditions for more details

Boolean Condition

Boolean condition enables joining multiple conditions. There are four types of Boolean Condition. They differ in the way they joins the first and second conditions and generate the result.

• Done result of the first condition. (There is no second condition)

• Not Inverts the result of the first condition. (There is no second condition)

• And True if both first and second condition are True, else False.

• Or True if at least one of first and second conditions are True, else False.

Condition Evaluation

There are several rules to consider when creating conditions.

1. The first condition of the Boolean Condition is always an Element Condition.

2. The second condition of a Boolean Condition is always a Boolean Condition.

3. All Conditional actions holds only one condition which is a Boolean Condition.

According to the rules this condition will be evaluated as

(is present OR(is absent AND (is present NOT)))

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Loading and Saving

import , save and Add to Workflow

A recording can be saved to the computer using the Save Button. The saved recording has an extension .vrec. A saved recording file can be opened using the Import Button.

A recording can be integrated to the Workflow using the Add to Workflow option. This will create a Desktop Automation Session Activity in the workflow.