Invoke ActiveX Method

UiPath.Core.Activities.InvokeActiveX

Programatically calls ActiveX methods and can emulate user actions on ActiveX controls whereno selectors can be found.

Important: This activity is only compatible with Internet Explorer.

Properties

Common

• ContinueOnError - Specifies if the automation should continue even when the activity throws an error. This field only supports Boolean values (True, False). The default value is False. As a result, if the field is blank and an error is thrown, the execution of the project stops. If the value is set to True, the execution of the project continues regardless of any error.

  Note: If this activity is included in Try Catch and the value of the ContinueOnError property is True, no error is caught when the project is executed.
• DisplayName - The display name of the activity.

Input

• Method Name - The name of the ActiveX Method you want to invoke. This field supports only strings and String variables.
• Target.ClippingRegion - Defines the clipping rectangle, in pixels, relative to the UiElement, in the following directions: left, top, right, bottom. It supports both positive and negative numbers.
• Target.Element - Use the UiElement variable returned by another activity. This property cannot be used alongside the Selector property. This field supports only UiElement variables.
• Target.Selector - Text property used to find a particular UI element when the activity is executed. It is actually a XML fragment specifying attributes of the GUI element you are looking for and of some of its parents.
• Target.TimeoutMS - Specifies the amount of time (in milliseconds) to wait for the activity to run before the SelectorNotFoundException error is thrown. The default value is 30000 milliseconds (30 seconds).

• Target.WaitForReady - Before performing the actions, wait for the target to become ready. The following options are available:

  • None - Does not wait for anything except the target UI element to exist before executing the action. For example, you can use this option if you want to retrieve just text from a web page or click a particular button, without having to wait for all UI elements to load. Note that this may have unwanted consequences if the button relies on elements which are not yet loaded, such as scripts.

  • Interactive/Complete - Waits all of the UI elements in the target app to exist before actually executing the action.

    To assess if an application is in the Interactive or Complete state, the following tags are verified:

  • Desktop applications - A wm_null message is sent to check the existence of the <wnd>, <ctrl>, <java>, or <uia> tags. If they exist, the activity is executed.
  • Web applications:
  1. Internet Explorer - The <webctrl> tag is used to check if the Ready state of the HTML document is set to Complete. Additionally, the Busy state has to be set to "False".
  2. Others - The <webctrl> tag is used to check if the Ready state of the HTML document is Complete.
  • SAP applications - First the presence of the <wnd> tag verified, after which a SAP specific API is used to detect if the session is busy or not.

Misc

• Private - If selected, the values of variables and arguments are no longer logged at Verbose level.

Output

• Result - The result of the invoked method.

In the body of the activity

The Indicate on screen button can be used to indicate the target of the activity.

The piece of ActiveX code you want to invoke in your automation can be specified in the Item field in the body of the activity.

The Define button can be used to define Arguments for the invoke action, and the Custom Types button opens an edit box that enables you to define custom types of arguments for the activity.