From what I've seen of Keyword Tests, that's the one drawback. They're not always the easiest things to edit. You can't do a global search and replace like you could in standard JScript/VBScript code, and I don't know if the Global search even searches through the Keyword Tests. I've viewed Keyword Tests like Record-AnD-Playback scripting: good to see how things work, but I don't like using them for real development.
will_fetherolf, So do you manage your test suites completely in scripts? If so, I need to decide if I should do that, too... having scripts calling scripts would be easier to refactor, but not as easy to read. It stinks that we have to make these tradeoffs with TestComplete.
I've been using TestComplete since version 2, so I use what's familiar to me. I was on a project where someone had been using Keyword tests prior to me coming onboard with that project, and I found where I had to edit Keyword Tests cumbersome, and sometimes I ended up converting the Keyword Tests to script and abandoning the Keyword Tests just so I could work with them easier.
If it were me, and I was starting from the ground up, I would not use Keyword Tests at all. I know there are some people out there who find them useful, but I do not. When I've looked at the Keyword Tests, they are merely a GUI skin on top of JScript or VBScript. This GUI skin makes them difficult (for me) to work with. YMMV.
Keyword tests are very useful for testers who aren't also programmers at some level. I have found that scripts run faster and more reliably. Right now we are using both, but at my previous shop, we used scripts exclusively. Depends on what you need.
Yeah, when I first started my current project, all of our existing tests were keyword tests. They were horrible - mouse clicks were tied to screen coordinates rather than objects, and trying to fix them (for any reason) would make my head explode.
Fortunately for me, I was the only one on the project at that point, so I was able to throw them out entirely and start from scratch using scripts. Much easier to edit, and MUCH easier to write smaller routines for things like "Save and close form" that can be reused throughout the test.
