clay's avatar
clay
Contributor
5 years ago
Status:
New Idea

Enter multiple lines into Description column of keyword test editor.

If this feature is available, I do not know how to do it.  It would very helpful to be able to enter multi-line text content into the Description column of the keyword test editor.  Our convention for documentation is to write something meaningful to a human operator of the software application being tested for each step such that a manual test can be performed to mimmick the keyword test.  The problem is, there is no wrap-around on this column, nor is there an ability to enter a carriage return directly into the editor.  We have a workaround, which is to write the text into Notepad (with carriage returns) and cut and paste from Notepad into the Description cell.  This is very cumbersome at best.

 

As far as I can tell, the Description column appears to be the place to do line-by-line comments (we prefer to use the Comment line in keyword tests for higher-level documentation).  We like the line-by-line commenting because we have a in-house program that will pull out the Description content from keyword tests and write them to a text file, thus giving us a manual test procedure for a diagnostician to run when we encounter bugs.

documentation
Keyword Tests

11 Comments

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  • clay's avatar
    clay
    Contributor
    5 years ago
    I have looked at the web page previously. However, I do not believe it addresses my specific issue. I could not find anything, at least. Thanks for the suggestion. Good general info there.
  • Marsha_R's avatar
    Marsha_R
    Champion Level 3
    5 years ago

    clay   It does line by line commenting but gives you a larger box with much more room for text and allows carriage returns.  I put a screenshot in my last post.  Is that not your specific issue?

  • clay's avatar
    clay
    Contributor
    5 years ago
    Marsha, I have played around with that button. It looks like it is for updating a description for the entire keyword test, but not the description of individual statements. It does allow for multi-line editing such that I can cut and paste from the editor into the description cell, but I would prefer something that allows direct editing w/ multi-line capability. Am I missing something with what you are suggesting? Thank you.
  • Marsha_R's avatar
    Marsha_R
    Champion Level 3
    5 years ago

    If you actually type in the box you will notice that you have multi-line capability.  This box and the individual descriptions are the current ways you can add notes to a test.  I suggest that a combination of these will work for you, and you can do those now, rather than waiting for an update to the program to possibly happen some day.

  • tristaanogre's avatar
    tristaanogre
    Esteemed Contributor
    5 years ago

    Actually, Marsha_R , I think I know what clay  is talking about... he's not talking about the description field a the top of the keyword test, he's talking about the description field on each line within the test itself... that far right column in his screenshots.

    Clay,  At this time, I don't think there IS a multi-line capability there, hence your feature request.

    A suggestion:  Each line in a keyword test is a relatively simple step. ("Click on the ok button on this form").  So, I'm not sure how much description is necessary.

     

    Secondary suggestion: As a person who has done manual testing and automated testing both and been in environments that encorporate both, automated testing should supplement manual, not replace it.  So, that means that there should already be a documented test plan/test script out there some where for manual execution.  In most cases, when I've done automated testing, we take those documented manual test cases as our specifications for creating the automation.  Perhaps it would be good to start some sort of conversation internally on your team about starting some sort of documentation that drives the automation rather than the reverse.

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

    tristaanogre Yes, I know he is, but that box doesn't have the editing capabilities and the bigger one does.  Just showing him all the options that are already there, knowing that a new feature isn't coming any time soon.  Make do with what you have.

  • clay's avatar
    clay
    Contributor
    5 years ago
    Marsha_R - I figured this would end up with your most recent response. I have to admit, there are many other features within TestComplete that I would want to be of higher priority. But it would still be nice to have better editing capability :-) @trisaanogre re secondary suggestion - FYI, we do what you suggest at some level (write manual procedures first, then automate). However, our manual procedures typically are fairly coarse-grained with regard to detail. The automated procedures, by definition are much finer grained in detail. Thus, after the automated procedures are written, we often "circle back" to use the finer grained detail for our procedure documentation. We capture that detail be re-wording the description column in TestComplete and then pull that information out with a script. Thank you both for your comments.
  • tristaanogre's avatar
    tristaanogre
    Esteemed Contributor
    5 years ago

    clay  As a former manual tester, I cringe at "manual procedures are typically fairly course-grained".  I know, I know... not on topic for the feature request, but a rule of thumb I instituted back in the day when I was a lead of our QA group was to document the test steps of a test scenario as if you needed to communicate it to someone who has never touched the AUT before...because sometimes, that is what happens.  The person running the tests may not be the person who did the initial analysis and documentation of the scenarios.