Coded Ui WaitForControlReady(200) does not break on timeout - mfc

Question

Description: MFC Application
Desired action - check if a sub window open. Identify the sub window by a unique button located in the window.
Issue: When window is closed, The following code instead of returning false after 200 ms waits 7 seconds = timeout does not work.
The GeneralUIMap winwindow represents the button, since the button itself does not have unique search properties, and can only be uniquely identified by the WinWindow wrapper GeneralUIMap:
class x{
private UITestControl mainApplicationWindow; //main application window
private WinWindow GeneralUIMap;
private WinButton btnZoomAdd;
X(){
mainApplicationWindow = new WinWindow();
mainApplicationWindow.TechnologyName = "MSAA";
mainApplicationWindow.SearchProperties UITestControl.PropertyNames.Name] = " - Main Window - Welcome";
GeneralUIMap = new WinWindow(mainApplicationWindow);
GeneralUIMap.SearchProperties[WinWindow.PropertyNames.ControlId] = "8546";
btnZoomAdd = new WinButton(GeneralUIMap);
}
public bool isVisible()
{
WinWindow w = new WinWindow(mainApplicationWindow);
w.SearchProperties[WinWindow.PropertyNames.ControlId] = "8546";
try
{
w.WaitForControlReady(200);
}
catch (Exception e)
{
return false;
}
return true;
}

Answer 1

Does the window exist when you wait for it to be ready? If not, the function will raise a null exception. This exception takes time to come since Coded UI tries to find the control before to give up and returns null.
Use WaitForControlExist() or TryFind() as condition before to use WaitForControlReady().
Also WaitForControlReady() will return false if the timeout is reached. But your code actually will always returns true (if there is no exception) since you do not evaluate the value of WaitForControlReady().
Instead of try catch, use this:
if (w.TryFind() && w.WaitForControlReady(200))
{
return true;
else
{
return false;
}
IMO, 200 ms is really a short amount of time for a timeout. It could lead to false errors. In other cases that UI performance validation, you should have reasonable timeouts. The default timeout is 3000 ms in Coded UI, which should be sufficient. But don't hesitate to increase it.
Remember than a timeout will be reached only when the condition is not meet unlike delay where the action will wait until the end regardless the status of the object. Plus, automated tests will still be faster than human over all because of its regularity.
A last remark, your method "IsVisible()" does not exactly return the visible status of the window. With Coded UI, I think you can considere that a control is visible when you have a clickable Point or check the ControlStates:
w.WaitForControlPropertyNotEqual(UITestControl.PropertyNames.State, ControlStates.Invisible)
and maybe too:
w.WaitForControlPropertyNotEqual(UITestControl.PropertyNames.State, ControlStates.Offscreen);