testing VB open application

Hi Lorenzo,

Which of the suggested method is the most general and likely to succeed, given the fact that the application is an open VB one?

The first thing to try is methods/properties/fields of the corresponding control. Examine them thoroughly - there is a chance that you'll find what you need, although from my experience it is not always possible to obtain status bar text this way. The second thing to try is Text Recognition and MSAA. 

is it not possible to test such an html preview without the web plugin ? For instance, if I right-click on the preview I get the window-right-click-menu and I can see where the html is temporary saved, and I could read the html as a normal text file; this should be functional (although not optimal), but I can not get the path in the from the right click window menu: is that possible?

Without the Web Testing plug-in, you can only work with web pages in black-box mode. That is, you'll only get coordinate clicks and keystrokes. As for getting the corresponding markup, you should be able to get the page's source unless the context menu is blocked in the embedded browser. Simulate a right click and select the "View source" context menu option - this will open the source in an editor and you'll be able to access it. Also, it's possible that you'll be able to get the markup via the web browser control's methods/properties available in the Object Browser.