[API Proposal]: Change MenuAutomationPeer/ContextMenuAutomationPeer to inherite from ItemsControlAutomationPeer

[RonHeck]

Background and motivation

I was asked to create this API proposal for, PR #7335

For automation of UI-Tests we need to get access to menu items that are grouped (#6530). At the moment this is not possible because GroupItemAutomationPeer only creates automation peers for its children if the parent peer container is type of ItemsControlAutomationPeer.

API Proposal

Change inheritance of following types

namespace System.Windows.Automation.Peers
{
-    public class MenuAutomationPeer : FrameworkElementAutomationPeer
+    public class MenuAutomationPeer : ItemsControlAutomationPeer
    {
    }

-    public class ContextMenuAutomationPeer : FrameworkElementAutomationPeer
+    public class ContextMenuAutomationPeer : ItemsControlAutomationPeer
    {
    }

-    public class MenuItemAutomationPeer : FrameworkElementAutomationPeer, IExpandCollapseProvider, IInvokeProvider, IToggleProvider
+    public class MenuItemAutomationPeer : ItemsControlAutomationPeer, IExpandCollapseProvider, IInvokeProvider, IToggleProvider
    {
    }

ItemsControlAutomationPeer is directly derived from FrameworkElementAutomationPeer. The above types are moved deeper into the inheritance chain.

API Usage

This change effects how GroupItemAutomationPeer handles menu items. The API is used by tools like Ranorex for automated UI testing. In the end, the children of a menu item group should also be visible in the automation tree.

Alternative Designs

None

Risks

None

[miloush]

They are all peers for item controls, looks reasonable. You should point out that ItemsControlAutomationPeer is FrameworkElementAutomationPeer, so you are inserting a type in the inheritance chain rather than changing it.

The only remaining peers for item controls that are not ItemsControlAutomationPeers are StatusBarAutomationPeer ToolBarAutomationPeer. Shouldn't these be updated too?