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TikiHardBop's avatar
TikiHardBop
Occasional Contributor
12 months ago

Recognizing PrimeNg Table Cells

We have an application that uses PrimeNg components, v14. The application has a lot of Table components. We are having issues with TestComplete not being able to recognize the individual cells within a table component. The Checkpoint Wizard seems to find them OK, and you can see them in the Object Browswer, but when it comes to running the tests, it cannot recognize the individual cells. We are new to TestComplete, so I am assuming that there are tricks to doing this that we are just not aware of.

So any suggestions on reliably recognizing cells within an Angular table component would be greatly appreciated.

And while I am posting, is there some kind of group just for folks using TestComplete with Angular. I bet there are lots of tips and tricks that we have yet to learn and it would be good to have a central place where we can ask specific questions about this topic.

Checkpoints
Object Recognition
Test Creation
Web Testing

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  • AlexKaras's avatar
    AlexKaras
    Champion Level 3
    12 months ago

    Hi,

     

    > any suggestions on reliably recognizing cells within an Angular table

    Unfortunately, Angular (like many other modern fancy frameworks) does not assume automated UI testing and thus (at least by default) does not provide unique and stable identifiers for its UI web elements. With no unique and stable web element identifiers provided, creation of fast, reliable and more or less readable test code is a kind of an art with implementation specific for any given tested application. So the only universal piece of advice that I can provide you with for Angular application is to examine it carefully in the Object Browser and try to figure out the ways of how to reliably identify web elements that you need to interact with in your test.

     

    P.S. As Angular applications quite often have one or two root elements with IDs provided, I guess that in general it is possible to provide identifiers to web elements. What I don't know is why this is not done in the real projects. Either developers do not want to bother themselves with extra work or nobody just requires this until tests automation starts (and when it is too late).

     

    • TikiHardBop's avatar
      TikiHardBop
      Occasional Contributor
      12 months ago

      I did find a way around this issue. I was able to add a unique tag to each cell component (e.g. id=<table>.<column>.<uniqueRowIdentifier>). Next I wrestled with getting the CheckPoint Wizard and the Name Mapping to use id as their primary selection criteria. (I never did find it. I noticed that the QuickCheckPoint feature does this, so I am just going to use this from now on.). And now my current issue is getting TestComplete to hover over a specific cell in the table and select a button that only becomes visible during a hover. All these things have probably already been solved by somebody else somewhere and it would save myself, and other newbies, enormous numbers of hours and frustration if there was a central repository of Angular/PrimeNg specific information like this, or a specific group of "power users" that we could ask. I already have a series of pretty extensive Confluence pages with what I've learned so far to help other users in my organization.  

       

      Thanks for all the suggestions y'all have given so far, though! 

      • AlexKaras's avatar
        AlexKaras
        Champion Level 3
        12 months ago

        Hi,

         

        > my current issue is getting TestComplete to hover over a specific cell in the table

        Have you tried the .HoverMouse() method? Does it work for you?

         

  • Marsha_R's avatar
    Marsha_R
    Champion Level 3
    12 months ago

    Here's the documentation about working with AngularUI controls. Hopefully this is what you are looking for.

     

    I've never seen user groups split up that way, only by SmartBear product.  Rache1 do you have any suggestions?

  • Rache1's avatar
    Rache1
    SmartBear Alumni (Retired)
    12 months ago

    Thanks Marsha_R !

     

    Hi TikiHardBop ! There is not a Community group like that but I have reached out to our team if there is any other additional information that would be helpful. I'll let you know when I hear from them. Thanks!

  • Rache1's avatar
    Rache1
    SmartBear Alumni (Retired)
    12 months ago

    Hi TikiHardBop ! To follow up on this, apologies that there is no user group/central area for this specific topic but you can continue to submit your questions in the TestComplete Community if you get stuck. Have a great weekend! 🙂