Many Windows objects spy for accessibility/automation IDs only show top level information

[djalan]

I would like to know if sub-level information is availabe for non-headless automation. I used many objects spy, but unfortunately they are not able to find all the objects.

When spying Calculator, you can see many groups of groups containing different objects.

But for our Avalonia App, it seems that it stops at ListItem and we can't see the TextBlock under ListItem and there is no way to retrieve its text value.

We nested many levels of .axaml files for modular development. Is this breaking the visibility of objects when using a spy?

[stevemonaco]

Can you provide a repro or XAML sample that demonstrates? I have scenarios that populate ListItem and I have scenarios that do not (viewed within FlaUIInspect). The type of child controls used is important. In the latter case, I had Borders and a Rectangle for a palletized color picker. Neither of those implement a real AutomationPeer and uses the default NoneAutomationPeer, I believe.

[djalan]

We are using a customized TextBlock that changes size automatically named ResizableTextBlock.

I was able to override the below method

Avalonia/src/Avalonia.Controls/TextBlock.cs

Line 773 in 27e446e

protected override AutomationPeer OnCreateAutomationPeer()

and made a copy of the below that we called ResizableTextBlockAutomationPeer

Avalonia/src/Avalonia.Controls/Automation/Peers/TextBlockAutomationPeer.cs

Line 5 in 27e446e

public class TextBlockAutomationPeer : ControlAutomationPeer

And now two different object spys can see my object under ListItem.

[stevemonaco]

If you derive from TextBlock, then you should be fine with the parent's setting of TextBlockAutomationPeer. At least my derived TextBlock shows up...though it's not in a collection control.

If it works, it works I guess. I don't know the AutomationPeer area well.

[djalan]

It used to be derived from TextBlock. Someone changed the code and it is now derived from TemplatedControl.

[stevemonaco]

That would do it. Without overriding, you would be exposing NoneAutomationPeer since that's the default.