Clipping region

The ClippingRegion property in classic UI Automation activities is nested under the Target property, and it can be used to establish smaller/larger region of the UI element found at runtime using the Target's Selector property or provided directly via the Target's Element property.

To do so, you need to enter values for all coordinates, (Left, Top, Right, Bottom), and manipulate the clipping region directly.

There are some differences between visual debug feedback and actual robot actions. Let's take the classic Click activity as an example.

For a clipping region of (-10,-10, 0, 0), configuring the activity with CursorPosition set on BottomRight results in the click action taking place at the element’s origin (0,0).

For a clipping region of (0, 0, -10, -10), the result is similar to the first one because of internal code sorting / switching the lowest numbers on the X and Y axis.

For a clipping region of (10, 10, -10, -10), the click action takes place exactly (10,10) away from the element’s origin (0,0). The same sorting of clipping region values on X and separately on Y axis results in an internal clipping region (-10, -10, 10, 10).

Basically, although first two coordinates X, Y should be relative to TopLeft, while the last two coordinates should appear be relative to the element’s BottomRight. However, this is not accurate, and all four coordinates are relative to the element’s TopLeft.

Moreover, due to internal code sorting values on the X and Y axis, a configuration such as (0, 0, -10, -10) yields the same result as a (-10, -10, 0, 0) configuration.

You can set up a clipping region by using the classic Set Clipping Region activity.

The clipping region can be set to cover only the element or image that is found by using the Find Image or Find Element activities.

The position of the element or image is identified, and the region can be then manipulated using the TRANSLATE property of the Set Clipping Region activity.