UI Automation finds only the Access form, not the WKL control

WKL Forms Object Library in Access forms (all releases), queried by a UI Automation client such as a test tool or an accessibility checker: AutomationElement.FromPoint over the control, or a walk of the children of the form's element. Microsoft 365 Access, 32 bit.

Access presents a form to UI Automation as its own element and does not list the windows of the ActiveX controls on it as children of that element. FromPoint over a WklNavBar, WklActionBar or WklGrid therefore returns the form (or the Access main window), and the raw view of the form shows no child for the control. The control is not missing: every WKL control that has a window answers UI Automation from that window itself - the navigation bar as a list named “Navigation” with one item per entry, the grid as a data grid with rows and cells, the command bar as a tool bar.

A screen reader such as Narrator reaches the controls with the keyboard (Tab into the control): the control then has the focus, and UI Automation reports the focused element of the control's window.

Find the control's window by its window handle and ask that window:

1. Find the form's window (OForm; a page in a subform control is OFormSub) below the Access main window of your own Access process (Application.hWndAccessApp).
2. Enumerate its child windows (EnumChildWindows) and keep the visible ones whose class name starts with WindowsForms10. A control usually has two windows of the same size, the OLE host and the control's view; take the innermost one.
3. Call AutomationElement.FromHandle with that handle. Pick the control among several by what UI Automation reports, for example the control type List and the name “Navigation”.

Access recreates the window of a control when its width changes or when it is disabled and enabled again; look the handle up anew before each use. Ask only windows of your own Access process and never search from AutomationElement.RootElement: such a search also asks every other program on the machine, including other Access instances.

• WklNavBar overview
• WklGrid overview
• Copy and paste fail after many Access sessions: why a UI Automation client should ask only its own Access process.