How to maintain a list of the items currently visible in Explorer's items view

Question

I'm trying to maintain a list (i.e., a vector or set) of IUIAutomationElements representing the items in Explorer's items view. I've already obtained an IUIAutomationElement for the items view itself, so from there I'm essentially trying to keep track of its item children. I also need to access each item's index in the view (through the property discussed here).

My current approach is that, whenever the user scrolls, for example, I FindAll the children of the items view with the UIA_ListItemControlTypeId. That method works and is pretty straightforward, but I'm wondering if it's too inefficient. Because on any scroll, no matter how small, it's doing a lot of work.

The other idea I had was to set up an event handler for the StructureChangedEvent in the items view, which would keep track of the children as they come and go. But after using AccEvent, it appears that the properties of the discarded child aren't available after the child is gone, so I wouldn't be able to access that element's (former) index (and that property isn't available for virtualized items). So I wouldn't know what element to remove from my vector.

So are there any other potential strategies for keeping tabs on the items view's children? Or is the FindAll the best option, even if it is inefficient?

Answer 1

Microsoft UI Automation allows clients to subscribe to events of interest. This capability improves performance by eliminating the need to continually poll the UI elements in the system to see if any information, structure, or state has changed.

For this scenario, we can subscribe Structure change event via AddStructureChangedEventHandler. Please refer to the code sample below about handling Structure-Changed events:

// Defines an event handler for structure-changed events, and 
// listens for them on the element specifies by the user.
#include <windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <UIAutomation.h>

class EventHandler:
    public IUIAutomationStructureChangedEventHandler
{
private:
    LONG _refCount;

public:
    int _eventCount;

    // Constructor.
    EventHandler(): _refCount(1), _eventCount(0) 
    {
    }

    // IUnknown methods.
    ULONG STDMETHODCALLTYPE AddRef() 
    {
        ULONG ret = InterlockedIncrement(&_refCount);
        return ret;
    }

    ULONG STDMETHODCALLTYPE Release() 
    {
        ULONG ret = InterlockedDecrement(&_refCount);
        if (ret == 0) 
        {
            delete this;
            return 0;
        }
        return ret;
    }

    HRESULT STDMETHODCALLTYPE QueryInterface(REFIID riid, void** ppInterface) 
    {
        if (riid == __uuidof(IUnknown))
            *ppInterface=static_cast<IUIAutomationStructureChangedEventHandler*>(this);
        else if (riid == __uuidof(IUIAutomationStructureChangedEventHandler)) 
            *ppInterface=static_cast<IUIAutomationStructureChangedEventHandler*>(this);
        else 
        {
            *ppInterface = NULL;
            return E_NOINTERFACE;
        }
        this->AddRef();
        return S_OK;
    }

    // IUIAutomationStructureChangedEventHandler methods
    HRESULT STDMETHODCALLTYPE HandleStructureChangedEvent(IUIAutomationElement* pSender, StructureChangeType changeType, SAFEARRAY* pRuntimeID) {
        _eventCount++;
        switch (changeType) 
        {
            case StructureChangeType_ChildAdded:
                wprintf(L">> Structure Changed: ChildAdded! (count: %d)\n", _eventCount);
                break;
            case StructureChangeType_ChildRemoved:
                wprintf(L">> Structure Changed: ChildRemoved! (count: %d)\n", _eventCount);
                break;
            case StructureChangeType_ChildrenInvalidated:
                wprintf(L">> Structure Changed: ChildrenInvalidated! (count: %d)\n", _eventCount);
                break;
            case StructureChangeType_ChildrenBulkAdded:
                wprintf(L">> Structure Changed: ChildrenBulkAdded! (count: %d)\n", _eventCount);
                break;
            case StructureChangeType_ChildrenBulkRemoved:
                wprintf(L">> Structure Changed: ChildrenBulkRemoved! (count: %d)\n", _eventCount);
                break;
            case StructureChangeType_ChildrenReordered:
                wprintf(L">> Structure Changed: ChildrenReordered! (count: %d)\n", _eventCount);
                break;
        }
        return S_OK;
    }
};

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) 
{
    HRESULT hr;
    int ret = 0;
    IUIAutomationElement* pTargetElement = NULL;
    EventHandler* pEHTemp = NULL;

    CoInitializeEx(NULL,COINIT_MULTITHREADED);

    IUIAutomation* pAutomation=NULL;
    hr = CoCreateInstance(__uuidof(CUIAutomation), NULL, CLSCTX_INPROC_SERVER, __uuidof(IUIAutomation), (void**)&pAutomation);
    if (FAILED(hr) || pAutomation == NULL) 
    {
        ret = 1;
        goto cleanup;
    }

    wprintf(L"-Use the mouse to point to the element you want to listen from.\n");
    Sleep(3000);

    // Make this application dots-per-inch (DPI) aware.
    SetProcessDPIAware();

    // Get mouse cursor position and get element from point.
    POINT pt;
    GetPhysicalCursorPos(&pt);
    hr = pAutomation->ElementFromPoint(pt, &pTargetElement);
    if (FAILED(hr) || pTargetElement == NULL) 
    {
        ret = 1;
        goto cleanup;
    }

    pEHTemp = new EventHandler();
    if (pEHTemp == NULL) 
    {
        ret = 1;
        goto cleanup;
    }

    wprintf(L"-Adding Event Handler.\n");
    hr = pAutomation->AddStructureChangedEventHandler(pTargetElement, TreeScope_Subtree, NULL, (IUIAutomationStructureChangedEventHandler*) pEHTemp);
    if (FAILED(hr)) 
    {
        ret = 1;
        goto cleanup;
    }

    wprintf(L"-Press any key to remove event handler and exit\n");
    getchar();

    wprintf(L"-Removing Event Handler.\n");
    hr = pAutomation->RemoveStructureChangedEventHandler(pTargetElement, (IUIAutomationStructureChangedEventHandler*) pEHTemp);
    if (FAILED(hr)) 
    {
        ret = 1;
        goto cleanup;
    }

    // Release resources and terminate.
cleanup:
    if (pEHTemp != NULL) 
        pEHTemp->Release();

    if (pTargetElement != NULL) 
        pTargetElement->Release();

    if (pAutomation != NULL) 
        pAutomation->Release();

    CoUninitialize();
    return ret;
}

Here is an helpful document about Subscribing to UI Automation Events.