Accessing main window menus during C++ test run

[Colomban Wendling]

Hello everybody,

I'm trying to interact with the UI in a CppUnit test, or more 
specifically with the accessible objects representing it, as part of the 
CppUnit accessibility unit tests project I'm working on.

I have no trouble reaching the top window or document, but most UI 
around the document seem empty, and specifically in the current area I'm 
pursuing right now: the menus.  I can get a hold of the menubar, but it 
has no children whatsoever.  Same goes for e.g. the statusbar.

I even tried hacking around VCL's Menu class to see whether it was the
accessible objects I was lacking, but no, barely any menu items are
constructed for my test runs, whereas a whole lot of them are during a 
normal run, as expected.

What I do to create my test windows don't seem too odd to me: I'm 
calling XDesktop2::loadComponentFromURL(), where the instance comes from 
frame::Desktop::create(test::BootstrapFixture::mxComponentContext) -- 
same goes trying to use UnoApiTest::mxDesktop::loadComponentFromURL().
My naive expectation was that I'd get a full-featured window with the
corresponding document, but apparently I only get a mock or subset of 
the actual UI.

So, is there a way to get a full-featured UI in a test, and how?  Or to 
load specific parts of the UI on demand, so to have the same behavior a 
normal run would have?

Currently I'm working with Writer, but any component would be fine for 
now, and ideally I'd have a solution for all of them; but any one would 
be a good enough start :)

BTW I know I could perform actions sending UNO commands, but here I'm 
really more interested in the UI elements behavior and accessibility 
than the commands they trigger, so that's not a solution.

I'd be very glad to get any pointers that could help, thanks!

Regards,
Colomban Wendling