Patent ID: 7451455

Claim:
An apparatus comprising a computing device having one or more processors and computer-readable storage media for interacting with a target software product having user interface functionality, comprising: script execution logic configured to execute a script that involves interaction with the user interface functionality of the target software product; and manipulation tool logic that provides functionality for use by the script application logic in interfacing with the target software product, wherein the manipulation tool logic includes search logic configured to search for a user interface object using a plurality of different selectable search strategies and comprises event handling logic configured to monitor a firing of the user interface object and execute a callback function upon the occurrence of a specified event caused by the firing of the user interface object, wherein the event handling logic is further configured to block the execution of the script execution logic until a second specified event has occurred within a specified timeout period, wherein error processing is performed if the second specified event does not occur within the specified timeout period, the callback function executing a prescribed function upon the occurrence of the specified event, wherein one of the search strategies is a flag-based attribute search strategy that involves comparing a specified property value and qualifying flag information with information associated with the user interface object, wherein the flag information is configured to provide a filtering function in a search by restricting results of the search to a certain subset of results based on the flag information.