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GGuezet's avatar
GGuezet
Contributor
2 years ago
Solved

Testcomplete is unable to recognize an <p> html element that does not contain text

Hello everyone, I am working on a web project, and I need to interact with an object. I am using TestComplete 15.50.3.7   The HTML is looking like this:   <div class="col-sm-2 ms-2"> <p class...
Object Recognition
Script Tests
Web Testing
  • tristaanogre's avatar
    tristaanogre
    2 years ago

    So, here's the thing.  I'm not a web developer myself so I wasn't quite sure what the <p> element was in HTML.  So, I googled it.... it's a text delimiter indicating a block of text as a paragraph.  So, most HTML browsers, readers, etc., are probably going to look for that being some sort of text block.  Without any actual text in it, that's probably confusing the engine that TestComplete uses because it is looking for text but there is no text until you add text.

    My suggestion:  This is bad HTML.  While it's not causing issues in the application itself, it seems that using the <p> element is a non-standard way of constructing a web app.  <div> seems most proper for this use.  I'd go back to your developers and make that suggestion.  Good job!  As a tester, you found a bug in your application!

  • tristaanogre's avatar
    tristaanogre
    2 years ago

    You're probably right.  But then, if I can't see it in the web browser myself, on the screen, not sure how TestComplete could render it.  Note that when you DID add text, it showed up as a "TextNode" which is exactly what the <p> tag is.  Might be worth bringing up to TestComplete support folks as suggested but this feels low on the scale of something that needs fixed.  Just my thoughts.  YMMV

GGuezet's avatar
GGuezet
Contributor
2 years ago

Parent objects are contained into <div> elements.

Replacing the <p> element with a <div> element make it recognized by TestComplete.

  • tristaanogre's avatar
    tristaanogre
    Esteemed Contributor
    2 years ago

    So, here's the thing.  I'm not a web developer myself so I wasn't quite sure what the <p> element was in HTML.  So, I googled it.... it's a text delimiter indicating a block of text as a paragraph.  So, most HTML browsers, readers, etc., are probably going to look for that being some sort of text block.  Without any actual text in it, that's probably confusing the engine that TestComplete uses because it is looking for text but there is no text until you add text.

    My suggestion:  This is bad HTML.  While it's not causing issues in the application itself, it seems that using the <p> element is a non-standard way of constructing a web app.  <div> seems most proper for this use.  I'd go back to your developers and make that suggestion.  Good job!  As a tester, you found a bug in your application!