Named References

Index

• What is ImGuiTestRef?
• Basic usage
• Using SetRef() to set a Base Reference
• Using the // prefix to ignore a Base Reference
• Using the / prefix to get to the window of a Base Reference
• Using the //$FOCUSED prefix
• Using **/ to search by label
• Using $$123 to easily encode integers in a string
• Using WindowInfo() to easily access child windows

What is ImGuiTestRef?

Most functions in the ImGuiTestContext API are taking a ImGuiTestRef argument in order to refer to an item/widget.

void ItemClick(ImGuiTestRef ref, ImGuiMouseButton button = 0);

A ImGuiTestRef is typically constructed implicitly from another type and:

• can hold the path to an item/window (when constructed from a const char*)
• can hold the ID of an item/window (when constructed from a ImGuiID)

Typical usage:

ctx->ItemClick("Button");

Using named paths is greatly convenient and open many possibilities.
The structure itself is pretty lightweight and straightforward (see its definition). Its short lifetime as function argument means it only holds a pointer to a string.

Basic Usage

Consider this GUI code:

ImGui::Begin("Window");
ImGui::Button("Button");
if (ImGui::TreeNode("Node"))
{
    ImGui::Checkbox("Checkbox", &b);
    ImGui::TreePop();
}
ImGui::End();

Different ways to access the button and checkbox with named paths:

ctx->ItemClick("//Window/Button");        // Absolute path to the button
ctx->ItemCheck("//Window/Node/Checkbox"); // Absolute path to the checkbox

Single forward slashes / are used as a natural delimitation for items in a path.

Fun Fact! Because the underlying identifiers used by Dear ImGui are hashes of concatenated data, the single forward slashes are technically unnecessary (but absolutely recommended for readability):

ctx->ItemCheck("//WindowNodeCheckbox");   // Also works! (but not recommended: it is bizarre and harder to read!)

In case you need to refer to item containing a slash in their name, you'll need to escape it using a backslash \. Note that in the majority of programming languages, backslashes in literal strings themselves needs to be escaped, therefore needing two:

ctx->ItemClick("A\\/B");                  // Click item called "A/B"

Using SetRef() to set a Base Reference

In order to simplify testing code, it is common to use SetRef() to set Base Reference:

ctx->SetRef("//Window");
ctx->ItemClick("Button");                 // Relative path to the button (from base provided to SetRef() call)
ctx->ItemCheck("Node/Checkbox");          // Relative path to the checkbox (from base provided to SetRef() call)
ctx->ItemClick("//Window/Button");        // Absolute path to the button

Although it will often be the case, the value passed to SetRef() doesn't necessarily has to be a window:

ctx->SetRef("Window/Node");
ctx->ItemCheck("Checkbox");

And this bizarre/unnatural example illustrate a property of the hashing:

ctx->SetRef("Window/Node/Chec");
ctx->ItemCheck("kbox");      // Click "Window/Node/Checkbox" (bizarre and strongly discouraged!)

Using // to ignore a Base Reference

By using a leading // in a named paths, the value set in SetRef() is ignored.

Consider this GUI code:

ImGui::Begin("Window 1");
ImGui::Button("Button 1");
if (ImGui::TreeNode("Node"))
{
    ImGui::Checkbox("Checkbox", &b);
    ImGui::TreePop();
}
ImGui::End();

ImGui::Begin("Window 2");
ImGui::Button("Button 2");
ImGui::End();

And this test code:

// Default base reference is null so we can omit leading `//`
ctx->ItemClick("Window 1/Button 1");   // OK (relative path assuming SetRef() value is 0)
ctx->ItemClick("Window 2/Button 2");   // OK (relative path assuming SetRef() value is 0)

ctx->ItemClick("//Window 1/Button 1"); // OK (absolute path)
ctx->ItemClick("//Window 2/Button 2"); // OK (absolute path)

ctx->SetRef("Window 1");
ctx->ItemClick("Button 1");            // OK (relative path)
ctx->ItemClick("Button 2");            // INCORRECT (relative path will lead to "//Window 1/Button 2" which doesn't exist)
ctx->ItemClick("//Window 1/Button 1"); // OK (absolute path, unnecessary here but works)
ctx->ItemClick("//Window 2/Button 2"); // OK (absolute path)

As a special measure, all values passed to SetRef() are always considered absolute reference, never relative.
So those two statements are always equivalent:

ctx->SetRef("Window");
ctx->SetRef("//Window");

Using / to get to the window of a Base Reference

When using composite path, a leading single-slash / may be used to get to root of the window contained in the composite path:

ctx->SetRef("Window/Node");
ctx->ItemClick("/Button");                // Click "//Window/Button" 
ctx->ItemCheck("Checkbox");               // Click "//Window/Node/Checkbox"
ctx->ItemCheck("/Node/Checkbox");         // Same as above.
ctx->ItemCheck("//Window/Node/Checkbox"); // Same as above.

(As a future extension, we may add support for trailing ../ sequences to move up one level in the Base Reference)

Using the //$FOCUSED prefix

Using a leading//$FOCUSED syntax is a shortcut to access the identifier of the currently focused window.

ctx->ItemClick("Open Popup");             // Click on a button to open a popup
ctx->SetRef("//$FOCUSED");                // Set our Base Reference as the newly focused window (assuming it is the popup)
ctx->ItemClick("OK");                     // Click OK in the popup

ctx->WindowClose("//$FOCUSED");           // Close the focused window

Important: using //$FOCUSED inside a SetRef() calls evaluate and locks the currently focused value at the time of the SetRef() call:

ctx->WindowFocus("Window 1");             // Focus window
ctx->SetRef("//$FOCUSED");                // Set Base Reference to "Window 1" ("//$FOCUSED" is evaluated this point)
ctx->ItemClick("Button 1");               // Click "//Window 1/Button 1"
ctx->WindowFocus("Window 2");             // Focus another window
ctx->ItemClick("Button 1");               // Click "//Window 1/Button 1" (NOT "//$FOCUSED/Button 1" which would be "//Window 2/Button 1");

// But outside of SetRef() it will be continuously reevaluated for each call:
ctx->ItemClick("//$FOCUSED/Button 1");    // INCORRECT: Click "//Window 2/Button 1"

Note that we INTENTIONALLY do not provide the equivalent //$HOVERED shortcut to refer to the window hovered by mouse. Why? Because it would be extremely fragile to use! While //$FOCUSED is technically subject to the same issue, it changes much less frequently and generally following explicit user actions. In our attempts to use //$HOVERED it led us to so much confusion and bugs we decided it wasn't worth it. You can however use:

IM_CHECK(g.Hoveredwindow != NULL);
ctx->SetRef(g.HoveredWindow->ID);

Using **/ to search by label

Using $$123 to easily encode integers in a string.

While many identifiers pushed in the Dear ImGui ID stack are strings, it is also common to push integers and pointers when displaying lists, tables and tree nodes.

// Submit 10 buttons
ImGui::Begin("Window");
for (int n = 0; n < 10; n++)
{
    ImGui::PushID(n);
    ImGui::Button("Button");
    ImGui::PopID();
}
ImGui::End();

As a convenience we provide a syntax to encode numbers/literals into named paths:

ctx->ItemClick("//Window/$$5/Button"); // Click the 6th button

We expect that using the pointer variants of functions pushing to the ID stack (e.g. PushID(void*), TreeNode(void*, const char* text)) is likely going to make things tedious in term of accessing items by a unique path name. Out of completeness we however have way to encode pointers using our syntax:

MyNode* node = (MyMode*)0x1234FFFF;
ImGui::PushID(node);
ImGui::Button("Button");
ImGui::PopID();

ctx->ItemClick("//Window/$$(ptr)0x1234FFFF/Button"); // Click the button

Note that you can also use **/ label based searches to find uniquely label items whenever you don't know their full paths. This is often more convenient.

Using WindowInfo() to easily access child windows