Explaining UiPath’s Modern Design Experience in light of its differences from Classic

Since UiPath Studio 2021.10, the Modern Design Experience has been enabled for new projects, and many of you may be confused by the difference from the Classic Design Experience.


This article describes the differences and changes between the Modern Design Experience and the Classic Design Experience.

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About Modern Experience

What is Modern Experience

The Modern Experience is a design that changes the Recorder, Activities, Object Repository, and Scraping Wizard from the Classic Experience, which was used by default until 2021.4.


Mainly, some of the functionality of UiPathStudioX has been imported into UiPathStudio, and some activities and the recorder and scraping wizards have been simplified.

Enable/Disable Modern Experience

Since UiPath Studio 2021.10, the Modern Design Experience is enabled when a new project is created.

After creating a project, you can enable or disable the Modern Design Experience (using the Classic Design Experience).

Steps to Disable the Modern Design Experience

1. In UiPath Studio, click on “Project”

2. Click on ■ Project Settings

3. Under “General,” click on “Modern Design Experience. *Click to restart Studio.

4. Ribbons have been changed to classic recording, screen scraping, and data scraping

5. The “Modern Design Experience” changed in step 3 is set to “No”, so the Classic Experience design is used.

Classic and Modern Experience

Difference between Classic Experience and Modern Experience

	Classic Experience	Modern Experience
Recorders	Basic, Desktop, Web, Image, Native Citrix, and Computer Vision	App/Web and Computer Vision
Activities	Classic activity and modern activity (*available by changing settings)	Modern Activity and classic activity (*available by changing settings)
Object Repository	not available	available
Scraping Wizards	Data scraping, screen scraping	table extraction

Modern Experience Features

Recorders

App/Web

Whereas the Classic Experience required the use of Basic, Desktop, Web, Image, and Native Citrix recorders depending on the target of operation, the Modern Experience allows recording with the App/Web recorder.

Sample 1
Create a process to write text in Notepad using an app/web recorder

1. Process Creation Process
(1) Click on “App/Web Recorder

(2) Select in Notepad

(3) Enter the text to be input into Notepad. (In this case, we will use “abcde”.)

(4) Click “Confirm”

(5) Click the Save button.

(6) Recordings are created in the workflow.

2.Execution results of the created process
(1) Click “Run” under “Debug Files”

(2) As a result of the execution, “abcde” is written in Notepad.

Sample2
Using the App/Web Recorder to create a process to click on a shopping on the website Yahoo!

1. Process Creation Process

(1) Click on “App/Web Recorder”

(2) Select “NEWS”

(3) Click the “Save” button.

(4) Recordings are created in the workflow.

2. Execution results of the created process
(1) Click “Run” under “Debug Files”

(2) As a result of execution, “NEWS” is clicked and the page transitions.

Computer Vision

The Computer Vision recorder is suitable for automatic generation of workflows that use Computer Vision activities.

The Computer Vision package required to use the Computer Vision activity includes a refactored version of the basic UIAutomation activity ([Click], [Enter Text], [Get Text], etc.).

The major difference between this Computer Vision activity and UIAutomation is that it uses Computer Vision’s neural network.

The Computer Vision activity was created for automation in virtual desktop environments, such as Citrix machines, to avoid the problem of non-existent/unreliable selectors.

sample process
Using Computer Vision Recorder, create a process to click on “ENTERTAINMET” on the website MSN

1. Process Creation Process

(1) Click on “Computer Vision”

(2) Click “Record”

(3) Click on the target browser

④ Click on “ENTERTAINMENT”

(5) Click “Save and Exit”

(6) Recordings are reflected in the workflow.

2. Execution results of the created process
(1) Click “Run” under “Debug Files”

(2) After the process is executed, the page after clicking “ENTERTAINMENT” is displayed.

Activities

View Classic Activities in the Modern Experience

Classic activities are also available in the Modern Experience. To use classic activities, change the following settings

Classic Activity Viewing Instructions
(1) Click on Activities in the lower left corner.

(2) Click on “Show Classic Activities”

(3) Classic activity is displayed

View Modern Activities in the Classic Experience

Modern Activities are also available in the Classic Experience. To use Modern Activities, change the following settings

Modern Activity Viewing Procedures
(1) Click on Activities in the lower left corner.

② Click on “Show Modern Activities”

(3) Modern activity is displayed.

Differences between modern and classic activities in UIAutomation

Modern Activities	Classic Activities
Check App State	On Element Appear, On Element Vanish, On Image Appear, On Image Vanish, Wait Element Vanish, Wait Image Vanish, Find Image, Image Exists
Check/Uncheck	Check
Click	Click, Double Click Click Image, Double Click Image
Extract Table Data	Extract Structured Data, Get Full Text, Get Visible Text
Get Text	Get Text
Go to URL	Navigate To
Highlight	Highlight
Hover	Hover, Hover Image
Keyboard Shortcuts	Send Hotkey
Navigate Browser	Close Tab, Go Back, Go Forward, Go Home, Refresh Browser
Select Item	Select Item
Take Screenshot	Take Screenshot
Type Into	Type Into, Type Secure Text
Use Application/Browser	Open Application, Open Browser, Attach Window, Attach Browser, Element Scope, Close Window Start Process
–	Anchor Base, Context Aware Anchor

Difference between Modern and Classic Activities in Excel

Classic	Modern
Excel Application Scope	Use Excel File
Excel Process Scope	Excel Process Scope
–	Single Excel Process Scope
Append To CSV	Append To CSV
Read CSV	Read CSV
Write CSV	Write CSV
Delete Column	Delete Column
Filter Table	Filter
Get Table Range	–
Insert Column	Insert Column
Sort Table	–
Append Range	Append Range
Close Workbook	–
Get Cell Color	–
Read Cell	Read Cell Value
Read Cell Formula	Read Cell Formula
Read Column	–
Read Range	Read Range
Read Row	–
Select Range	–
Set Range Color	–
Write Cell	Write Cell
Write Range	Fill Range
Save Workbook	Save Excel File
	Save Excel File As
Create Table	Create Table
Get Workbook Sheet	–
Get Workbook Sheets	–
Refresh Pivot Table	Refresh Pivot Table
Create Pivot Table	Create Pivot Table
Get Selected Range	–
Copy Sheet	–
Delete Range	–
Auto Fill Range	Auto Fill
Copy Paste Range	Copy Paste Range
Execute Macro	Run Spreadsheet Macro
Insert/Delete Columns	Delete Column
Insert/Delete Rows	Delete Rows
–	Insert Rows
Invoke VBA	–
LookUp Range	–
Remove Duplicates Range	Remove Duplicates
–	Autofit Range
–	Change Pivot Data Source
–	Clear Sheet/Range/Table
–	Copy/Paste Range
–	Export to CSV
–	Delete Sheet
–	Duplicate Sheet
–	Find First/Last Data Row
–	Find/Replace Value
–	For Each Excel Row
–	For Each Excel Sheet
–	Format As Table
–	Format Cells
–	Insert Chart
–	Insert Sheet
–	Match Function
–	Protect Sheet
–	Refresh Excel Data Connections
–	Rename Sheet
–	Save Excel File As PDF
–	Sort Range
–	Text to Columns
–	Unprotect Sheet
–	Update Excel Chart
–	VLOOKUP
–	Write DataTable to Excel

Object Repository

The Object Repository is a feature that allows UI classification information to be created and reused within an automation project and across multiple automation projects by capturing UI elements as objects that can be shared across projects in the repository.

The Object Repository is only available for Modern Activities in the Modern Experience.

sample
Create an object repository that specifies SPORTS for MSN and create a process to click on using the objects

１．Creating an object repository

(1) Click “Object Repository” on the workflow creation screen in Studio.

(2) Click the “Record” button.

(3) Click the “Record” button.

(4) Click Browser

(5) Click “SPORTS”

(6) Click the “Stop” button.

(7) Click the “Save” button

(8) An object repository has been created in the red box.

２．Process Creation

(1) Place [Use Application Browser] in the sequence

(2) Drag and drop the object repository’s browser UI to [Use Application Browser]

(3) Drag and drop the UI of an element in the object repository to [Run].

(4) Select [Click]

(5) Using the object repository, a process could be created to click on “SPORTS” in MSN

３．Execution results of the created process

Scraping Wizard

Table Extraction Wizard

Data scraping in the Classic experience has been replaced by the Table Extraction Wizard in the Modern experience. The functionality is nearly identical.

sample
Table Extraction Wizard to extract MSN MLB Standings in data table format and output to log

１．Process Creation Procedure

(1) Click on the “Table Extraction” wizard.

(2) Click “Add Data”

(3) Click on “Cntral” in the upper left corner of the Standings

(4) Click “Yes”

(5) Click the “Save” button.

(6) There is no next page, so click “Continue”

(7) The results of the Table Extraction Wizard are reflected in the process.

(8) To check the table extraction results, place the “Output Data Table” and “Message Log” activities and set them to convert the data in the data table to text and output it to the log.

(9) Completed Process

２．Execution Result

When the created process is executed, Standings is output to the log.

Screen scraping (alternative to get text)

There is no wizard in the Modern Experience that is equivalent to the screen scraping in the Classic Experience. However, it can be replaced by a “Get Text” activity.

sample
“Get Text” to get the text specified by the browser and output to the log.

１．プロセス作成手順

(1) Place the activity “Use Application/Browser”

(2) Under “Use Application/Browser,” click “Indicate application to automate” and specify the browser from which you want to retrieve the text.

(3) Place “Get Text” within Do

(4) “Indicate in Firefox:…” in “Get Text Click on

(5) Specify the text you want to retrieve in the browser.

(6) Click “Confirm”

(7) Press Ctrl+K in “Save to” of “Get Text” and set the variable for the output destination (strText in the image).

(8) In the “Get Text” activity, you can select a scraping method similar to the “Screen Scraping” in the Classic Experience.

(9) Place the “Log Message” activity and set the variable (strText).

(10) Completed Process

２．process execution result

Summary

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