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a_g_reed's avatar
a_g_reed
Occasional Contributor
5 years ago

Newbie Question about Scripting Tests to run across multiple DB

Hi all,   For starters, I'll be frank - I'm a newbie to QA, newbie to automation, and have no tech background. I worked in hospitality for 12+ years and for the past ~3 years have been with a sof...
a_g_reed's avatar
a_g_reed
Occasional Contributor

Hi Wamboo thanks so much for your reply it's very appreciated :smileyhappy:

I have gotten familiar with NameMapping over the past few weeks but it sounds like I have a bit more to research and learn there.

Just as you've described, I did use the Object Spy and went through each property of the object in question to determine which is a unique identifier and from what I can tell, the only one that is (aside from coordinates or other location markers) is TabIndex so I've used that to map the buttons.

It looks like my next step is going to be finding some tutorials and learning a bit about our programming language which I was just told is vb.net. Maybe I should've started there before diving into test automation :robotlol: I've seen a little bit somewhere about using a debugger and I wasn't quite grasping the concept; so, I'll definitely follow your recommendation to read up on that as well.

 

Thanks again for the advice!

 

- Allen

Wamboo's avatar
Wamboo
Community Hero
5 years ago

I'm glad I could help. If you need more help, go ahead.

  • QuietBeetle's avatar
    QuietBeetle
    New Member
    5 years ago
    @kroger feedback wrote:

    I'm glad I could help. If you need more help, go ahead.

    Just as you've described, I did use the Object Spy and went through each property of the object in question to determine which is a unique identifier and from what I can tell, the only one that is (aside from coordinates or other location markers) is TabIndex so I've used that to map the buttons.

      • a_g_reed's avatar
        a_g_reed
        Occasional Contributor
        5 years ago

        Wamboo thanks for the suggestion and the link; I'll look into this today :robothappy:

    • AlexKaras's avatar
      AlexKaras
      Champion Level 3
      5 years ago

      Hi,

       

      > is TabIndex so I've used that to map the buttons.

      TabIndex sounds not that reliable to me...

      You difinitely may talk with developers and wonder how stable the value of TabIndex for the given button will be. You are lucky if it is and may proceed with this approach.

      If it cannot be guaranteed that the value of TabIndex will remain stable, you may consider the approach like this:

      -- Search for all buttons within required scope (window/panel/etc.) using the .FindAllChildren() method;

      -- Iterate through the returned array and look for the button you need using some other criterion (for example - its caption);

      -- Proceed with the found button.

       

      The above approach will work even if TabIndex value changes from run to run. The price that you will pay is decreased performance (because of searching for all buttons and additional filtering) and possible cases with localization (if your application has localizations).

       

      • a_g_reed's avatar
        a_g_reed
        Occasional Contributor
        5 years ago
        AlexKaras 
        If it cannot be guaranteed that the value of TabIndex will remain stable, you may consider the approach like this:

        -- Search for all buttons within required scope (window/panel/etc.) using the .FindAllChildren() method;

        -- Iterate through the returned array and look for the button you need using some other criterion (for example - its caption);

        -- Proceed with the found button.

         

        The above approach will work even if TabIndex value changes from run to run. The price that you will pay is decreased performance (because of searching for all buttons and additional filtering) and possible cases with localization (if your application has localizations).

         

        Thank you very much for your reply and information :robothappy:

        Yes, I'm also worried about the TabIndex being stable, but it was the only unique property of the object so I figured I would try with that and see where it took me. I think it would work fine if all tests were being run on the one DB, but I'm almost certain it won't be useful across multiple DBs.

        I had actually thought about and looked into using the FindAllChildren method. However, where I was getting stuck was with actually returning an array. I wasn't sure which PropName and PropValue to use with the method in order to have anything returned. My first few attempts resulted in blank returns. Do you have any recommendations? Also, how would I go about iterating through the returned array? I really think this will be the way to go, because like you said it will work even if TabIndex changes from run to run. I'm not too concerned about decreased performance because this might be the only option for us to use TestComplete for this particular app (at least across multiple DBs).

         

        Thanks again for the info,

        - Allen