2 Mapping of IDM Object Classes to UIA Control Types

The IDM has as a design principle the use of the object classes (controls, widgets) provided by the system or toolkit to implement the interface objects and thus to keep operation and appearance as compliant as possible with the system.

Many of the IDM object classes are covered by the UI Automation Support for Standard Controls from Microsoft. If possible and required, the IDM adds the necessary properties.

With regard to UI Automation support in the IDM, the following categories can be distinguished:

D	Particular object classes cannot be equipped with additional UIA support through the IDM, but have sufficient support through the Microsoft default implementation. These include e.g. menubox, menuitem, menusep, messagebox and filereq.
E	Most of these object classes get complementary UIA support through the IDM, especially to facilitate their identification.
X	Object classes implemented by the IDM and object classes with inadequate Microsoft default implementation get individual UIA support. These are mainly the object classes image, tablefield, splitbox, layoutbox, progressbar, poptext and toolbar.
U	For special object classes such as control, canvas and USW objects, UIA support lies in the hands of the application programmer or object implementer.

The following table shall serve as a reference point for the mapping of IDM object classes to UIA Control Types as well as the functionality provided by the Pattern affiliation:

Category	IDM Object Class	UIA Control Type	Supported UIA Control Patterns
U	canvas	Pane	To be implemented by the canvas programmer
E	checkbox	CheckBox	Toggle, Invoke
U	control	Pane	Depends on the OLE/control object
E	edittext	Edit	System-dependent – typically Value, Text, Text2 Multi-line texts with scrollbars usually also have the Scroll Pattern
E	edittext with .options[opt_rf] = true	Document	System-dependent – typically Value, Text, Text2
D	filereq	Window	System-dependent
X	groupbox	Pane Child: Group	Invoke, Scroll (with virtual areas)
X	image	Button Children: Text, Image (if present)	Invoke, Toggle
X	layoutbox	Pane	Scroll (with virtual areas)
E	listbox	List Children: ListItem	Scroll, Selection, Invoke
D	menubox	Menu	ExpandCollapse
D	menuitem	MenuItem	Toggle, Invoke, ExpandCollapse, SelectionItem – depending on .style attribute
D	menusep	Separator	–
D	messagebox	Window	System-dependent
E	notebook	Tab	Selection
E	notepage	TabItem/Pane	SelectionItem
X	poptext	ComboBox Children: Edit, List, Text (according to .style)	ExpandCollapse, Value sowie Selection – depending on .style attribute
X	progressbar	ProgressBar	RangeValue
X	pushbutton	Button	Invoke
E	radiobutton	RadioButton	SelectionItem
X	rectangle	Button	Invoke
X	scrollbar	ScrollBar	RangeValue
X	scrollbar (slider)	Slider	RangeValue
X	spinbox	Spinner	RangeValue, Value, Selection – depending on .style attribute
X	splitbox	Pane Children: Pane	Visible split areas are sub-Panes with Transform Pattern
X	statictext (insensitive)	Text	Text
X	statictext (sensitive)	Button	Invoke
E	statusbar	StatusBar	–
X	tablefield	Table Children: ListItem	Grid, Table, GridItem, TableItem, Invoke, Scroll, Selection
X	toolbar	ToolBar	Dock, Transform, Window (depending on .docking attribute), Invoke
E	treeview	Tree	Scroll, Selection
E	window	Window	Window, Transform

UI Automation support may be changed by Microsoft anytime, so that changes concerning the mapping of UIA ControlTypes, Patterns, Properties and Events are always possible.