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Win Element Exists

Win Element Exists

Section titled “Win Element Exists”

Type: win-element-exists  ·  Package: Desktop Activities v1.0.8  ·  Output: boolean

Checks whether an element exists in the application and returns true or false. It does not fail when the element isn’t there: it simply returns false. It’s the way to handle interfaces that sometimes show something —an error dialog, a message, a conditional button.

How it works

Section titled “How it works”

It searches for the element by its selector. By default (timeout = 0) it makes an immediate check, without using the project’s timeout. With a larger timeout, it retries every 250 ms until then before returning false. The result usually feeds an If.

  • Only visible windows are searched; inside them, what counts is that the control can be located (it doesn’t check whether it is scrolled out of view).
  • Any problem while searching (an ambiguous selector, a window closing mid-query) counts as “doesn’t exist”.
  • It does not interact with the application or bring it to the front.

Required parameters

Section titled “Required parameters”
ParameterTypeDefaultDescription
selectorselector—The element to check.

Optional parameters

Section titled “Optional parameters”
ParameterTypeDefaultDescription
sessionZoanDesktopSession—Win Attach session. Inside a body it is taken automatically; without a session, the selector must include the window.
timeoutnumber0Maximum ms to wait for it to appear. 0 = immediate check.

Output

Section titled “Output”

Returns a boolean: true if the element was found within the time; false if not.

Common errors

Section titled “Common errors”
MessageCause and fix
'selector' is required.The selector is missing or invalid. Capture it with UI Discover.

Apart from that, the activity does not fail: a selector with no window node and no session simply returns false, so check the selector if you always get false.

Example

Section titled “Example”

Close a notice dialog only if it appears:

Win Element Exists   selector = (dialog "Notice")   timeout = 2000   → output: hasNotice
If   condition = hasNotice
 └─ then:
      Win Click   selector = (button "OK")
Section titled “Related activities”