Powershell automated testing code freezes when pop up window appears in GUI. - powershell

Question

I'm using Jenkins to perform some automated web testing on a web application.
I'm using powershell to automatically fill out forms, return values, etc. But sometimes a popup window will appear mid test. Weather its an error message or a sub form that needs to be filled out.
When this happens though, my code freezes indefinitely and I need to either exit out of the build or manually close the pop up window myself (defeating the purpose of automated testing).
Ideally I would like to be able to select the open pop up window as an object and fill out forms/ click buttons on it, but my code just freezes and doesn't give me chance.
Would anyone have any advice on how to overcome this?

Answer 1

I don't know Jenkins but here is a PowerShell function that shows a Messagebox that will disapear after a timeout interval specified in milli seconds. To this popup won't be blocking.
function Show-Messagebox
{
param([String]$Title, [String]$Message, [Int]$TimeOut=2000)
$TypeDef = #'
using System;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
public class Win32API
{
private const UInt32 WM_CLOSE = 0x0010;
[DllImport("user32.dll", EntryPoint="FindWindow", SetLastError = true)]
private static extern IntPtr FindWindowByCaption(IntPtr ZeroOnly, string lpWindowName);
[DllImport("user32.Dll")]
private static extern int PostMessage(IntPtr hWnd, UInt32 msg, int wParam, int lParam);
public static void ShowMessageBox(string Message, string Caption, int TimeOut = 2000)
{
var timer = new System.Timers.Timer(TimeOut) { AutoReset = false };
timer.Elapsed += delegate
{
IntPtr hWnd = FindWindowByCaption(IntPtr.Zero, Caption);
if (hWnd.ToInt32() != 0) PostMessage(hWnd, WM_CLOSE, 0, 0);
};
timer.Enabled = true;
MessageBox.Show(Message, Caption);
}
}
'#
Add-Type -TypeDefinition $TypeDef -ReferencedAssemblies System.Windows.Forms
[Win32API]::ShowMessageBox($Message, $Title, $TimeOut)
}
The function can be called like so:
Show-Messagebox -Title "The Title" -Message "The complete message"
It's a little clumsy having to put the whole type definition of a class in C# code as a here string into the function (there a no white spaces allowed before the end mark '# of the here string) but it's still a simple copy&paste solution.
If you replace the [System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox]::Show()-calls in a PoweShell script with this function there should be no blocking Messageboxes any more.