Multiple Attributes are ignored

[FinalBreaker]

CodedUIFluentExtensions/blob/master/CodedUIExtensions/CaptainPav.Testing.UI.CodedUI/Html/FluentHtmlSearchExtensions.cs

WithAttributes<T>(this T current, IDictionary<string, string> attributes)

the coded UI framework when you add a search criteria it only allows 1 item per key.

the Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UITesting.PropertyExpressionCollection implimentation

public void Add(PropertyExpression propertyExpression)
{
      if (propertyExpression == null)
        throw new ArgumentNullException("propertyExpression");
      **this.Remove(propertyExpression.PropertyName);**
      propertyExpression.PropertyChanged += new PropertyChangedEventHandler(this.OnPropertyChanged);
      this.List.Add((object) propertyExpression);
}

[spelltwister]

I'm not sure what is the problem you are highlighting? I will look into the WithAttributes method to see if I notice anything concerning. Can you give an example of what is not working?

By passing a dictionary<string, string>, only one value per key could be added.

[spelltwister]

Actually, I see the problem. Anything that looks at control definition can't have multiple contains. I may have to make this immediate executing. Not sure there is a vanilla codedui way to handle this. Thanks for the find

[FinalBreaker]

To further elaborate

var button = new HtmlButton(htmlDoc);
button.SeachProperties.Add(HtmlButton.PropertyNames.Class,"animated", PropertyExpressionOperator.Contains);
button.SearchProperties.Add(HtmlButton.PropertyNames.Class,"BigButton", PropertyExpressionOperator.Contains);
button.SearchProperties.Add(HtmlButton.PropertyNames.ControlDefinition,"enabled", PropertyExpressionOperator.Contains);
button.SearchProperties.Add(HtmlButton.PropertyNames.ControlDefinition,"style", PropertyExpressionOperator.Contains);

Would only result a button matching BigButton class and having a style attribute.
Attempting to add or assign duplicate entries to the same key from "PropertyNames" will only use the last one added.
However, if you need to support for multiple entries on the same key, you could....

1. cache the list of property expressions
2. load into a dictionary
   a. if not there add it,
   b. else add to fall over list
3. query for control
   a. if none in fall over list, do as you already do
   b. else use FindMatchingControls and cast to appropriate type, check for 0, 1 or many entries
   1. if 0 throw exception
   2. if 1 or many, use fall over list to filter criteria not already used.

[spelltwister]

Thanks for the elaboration. I am trying to keep the search extensions 'clean' meaning that they can be expressed with plain old CodedUI and not require any other classes to code against. In this case, I have a few options, as you described, but without doing something under the covers like you listed, I'm not sure of the best way.

By changing this to return immediately, I can do the find matching controls and you would not be able to add further search criteria. The tester would have to iterate and filter the returned set. Annoying, but reasonable.

Not making this return immediate, I have to track this somehow while allowing additional search criteria to be specified. Remember, methods like FindMatchingControls or even Find() need to be able to handle this setup as well. Tracking a dictionary will not help unless you use one of the extension methods to actually perform the search; and those methods need to be aware of the possibility of this case.

I have some thoughts about how to do this properly, but not sure there is a 'good' way to handle this using only the tools from CodedUI. For now, I will probably just make it immediately execute and return whatever matches the multiple attributes by not using SearchProperties, but just iterating over all the control definitions and doing some sort of regex.

If you know of a way to do this directly in coded ui without any tracking objects or other classes involved, I would love to see an example :)

[spelltwister]

I'm going to further post-pone this feature, unfortunately. I'm trying to figure out how to add additional properties which can be found by CodedUI naturally (similar to how Id, Name, and Class work). In my research, I've found https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh552522.aspx as a resource that may work.

[spelltwister]

There is also the option of using the ExecuteScript method to send out a jquery selector that includes all the attributes. I'm not sure how to limit the search to the current .Me of the page model though.

[thePantz]

Have you considered creating a By object similar to selenium? Other CodedUI projects have done this in the past.

The idea is to create an object that populates multiple control properties before searching for the control.

For example the CUITe project syntax would be something like:
Find<WinButton>(By.Name("MyButton").AndClass("animated").AndClass("BigButton"));

They CUITe project has their own implementation here
Marcel de Vries has also supported this approach here

This also has an added affect of making search properties more fluent

[FinalBreaker]

Great resource thePantz,
However, those approaches still use the broken API. CUITe Implementation to point out. while it looks like
Find<WinButton>(By.Name("MyButton").AndClass("animated").AndClass("BigButton"));
would work, any unit test will show class="animated" is thrown out. It uses no intelligent logic to detect or handle multiple search properties are for the same property. the both under the hood build a normal PropertyExpressionCollection,which in my first post showing the implementation will throw out an existing item if you try to add another by the same key
Find<WinButton>(By.Name("MyButton").AndClass("animated").AndClass("BigButton"));
is exactly equivalent to
Find<WinButton>(By.Name("MyButton").AndClass("BigButton"));
all that has accomplished to do is trick developers in think any coded UI API supports this

[thePantz]

Ah I see, I misunderstood.
The issue is you can't assign multiple values to a PropertyExpressionCollection with the same key.
The PropertyExpressionCollection.Add() most likely removes any existing keys so we don't get a DuplicateKeyException if we want to modify search properties after the initial search.

I think what you're looking for is FilterProperties
I have little experience with them but I believe Coded UI will evaluate SearchProperties first and then evaluate any FilterProperties to disambiguate.

So your fist example may look something like this:

var button = new HtmlButton(htmlDoc);
button.SearchProperties.Add(HtmlButton.PropertyNames.Class,"animated", PropertyExpressionOperator.Contains);
button.SearchProperties.Add(HtmlButton.PropertyNames.ControlDefinition,"enabled", PropertyExpressionOperator.Contains);
button.FilterProperties.Add(HtmlButton.PropertyNames.Class,"BigButton", PropertyExpressionOperator.Contains);
button.FilterProperties.Add(HtmlButton.PropertyNames.ControlDefinition,"style", PropertyExpressionOperator.Contains);

Of Course this only allows for up to two values to be evaluated for any given property. But at that point you may consider adding more unique identification to your UI.