I want to create an automated UI test that will test my syncfusion grid. My problem is that the recorder can't recognize this control (or any syncfusion control). I've searched a lot in the internet but I couldn't find any extension so the recorder will recognize my controls (I'm using WinForms, not WPF!), or at least a way to extend the recorder abilities so syncfusion's controls will be recognized somehow.
Is there any easy way to extend the recorder? Or is there any extension available?
Or maybe can I get the grid object from the WinClient that the recorder generates?
Thanks!
Start your program. Run the Spy++ utility. Type Ctrl+F to start the finder tool and drag the bulls-eye onto your form. Ok, Synchronize and have a look-see at the windows that are visible in the tree. If you see regular Windows Forms controls, like a Button or a Label, but not any of the SyncFusion controls then you've probably found the source of the problem.
Component vendors that try to improve .NET controls typically do so by creating 'window-less' controls. They are not really controls, they don't derive from the Control class and don't have a Handle property. They use the surface of the parent to draw themselves, making them look just like controls. The .NET ToolStripItem classes do this. And this is also the approach WPF uses.
The big advantage is that they render quickly and support all kinds of effects that regular controls can't support, like transparency, rotation and anti-aliased window edges. The big disadvantage is that the kind of tool that you are using suddenly gets noddy and can't find the control back. Because they work by finding the Windows window back on your form, there is no window for them.
This is a hard problem to solve, the 'control' exists only in memory and there's no good way for a tool to find it back. Using Accessibility is about the only other way for such a tool to find a control that I can think of. Which would have to be implemented by the control vendor first, a somewhat obscure feature that gets easily overlooked. You really do need the help of the vendor to find a workaround for this. Shouldn't be a problem, that's why you paid them the big money.
This is Rajadurai from Syncfusion. Thank you for your interest in Syncfusion Products. To make UI Test Automation recognize Syncfusion grids(WinForms), some internal support need to be provided in grid whose implementation is in progress and about to be completed. Please submit an incident through Direct-Trac for any further related inquiries in the following link.
http://www.syncfusion.com/Account/Logon?ReturnUrl=%2fsupport%2fdirecttrac
You can also contact us through support#syncfusion.com. We are happy to assist you.
Regards,
Rajadurai
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I want to create a project in WPF for designing a custom report.
For this, I need a library to add controls to a panel, canvas, etc. with drag and drop at runtime.
Controls should be resizable and moveable with the mouse. Finally I want to print this.
Telerik's WPF controls contain the Diagram Control which supports the features you mention out of the box. I use it for a very similar scenario as you describe and it works well. The might be a counterpart offered by Infragistics as well.
With .NET framework's built in features and/or free libraries you will able to cover the drag&drop part. You will have to implement the rest yourself which is possible but too much to ask for one question.
Late reply, but I came across this. Take a look at this
There are 4 parts that show how to do a toolbox with what you're looking for.
I'm very much new to Test Automation kind of thing. Recently I've been assigned to a project where I have to write an application (or, a script may be, I'm not sure) that will automate the UI testing of a CAD-like WPF application which misses lots of AutomationIds.
After doing a little searching on MSDN and other sources I'm a bit confused about whether I should use the Microsoft UI Automation Library or the new Coded UI Test feature included in VS2010. I'm not getting the clear picture of which one of these two applies in which scenarios, what advantages one has over the other and which one suits my purpose.
Please shade some light if you have experience/knowledge on the matter. Thanks in advance.
Basically Microsoft UIA is the new accesibility library in .Net 4.0. WPF applications and controls have built-in support for UIA through the AutomationPeer class.
Coded-UI test is a Record & Play automation tool which uses the Microsoft UIA Library underneath. Since being a tool compared to writing code in C# it improves QA productivity for recording more test cases.
For applications with automation support planned into it, Coded-Ui should be sufficient. If the AutomationIDs are missing make sure the controls have some unique property like Name. Use UIVerify or Inspect to check for this.
If NO unique property is avialble, there are the other below mentioned techniques you can use in combination with Coded-UI.
From an Event
When your application receives a UI Automation event, the source object passed to your event handler is an AutomationElement. For example, if you have subscribed to focus-changed events, the source passed to your AutomationFocusChangedEventHandler is the element that received the focus. For more information, see Subscribe to UI Automation Events.
From a Point:
If you have screen coordinates (for example, a cursor position), you can retrieve an AutomationElement by using the static FromPoint method.
From a Window Handle:
To retrieve an AutomationElement from an HWND, use the static FromHandle method.
From the Focused Control:
You can retrieve an AutomationElement that represents the focused control from the static FocusedElement property.
If you can leverage and use the Coded UI Test then go that route. Make sure to verify that your given configuration is supported.
The UI Automation Library resolves everything in the code behind. This then forces you to use a tool like UISpy to gain access to the controls internals so that you can then build out your test.
A Coded UI Test on the other hand still has code behind however it allows for the recording of steps through the given application which you are testing which will greatly increase the number of tests you can create.
UI Automation library is a low-level library. Usually, you don't want to write tests against it directly as it requires a pretty decent amount of work.
I would recommend looking at more high-level libraries. You mentioned one of them - Coded UI; another good choice would be White from TestStack. They both suits different kinds of projects. Coded UI is good when you don't want to invest a lot of efforts into your test suite. At the same time, it doesn't scale much so if you are going to write a lot of tests, you are better of choosing White.
Here I compare the two frameworks in more detail: Coded UI vs White
To complement the above responses, please look at CUITE that helps quite a bit and may be an appropriate approach for you.
I began 'rolling-my-own' 'semi-framework' using the CodedUITest library and devised a paradigm for separating the details of automation from the (C#) code.
Basically, I am creating a driver that reads what needs to be done from spreadsheet(s) where each line in it is a test step (or a pointer to a scenario in a different worksheet).
At present, incomplete, but promising, I have it working against a WPF application with partial success.
One of the main problems is that the developers neglected to identify controls uniquely and consistently.
Bey
Is there a way to download more controls or anything, because I have seen a few things in other programs I don't think I've seen in the toolbox. Can you download new ones, or did the company somehow custom make a control? If it was custom made, are there any tutorials I can take a look at that tell how to make your own?
Some companies make third party controls for Winforms - Telerik is one I know of.
Personally, I prefer to make my own controls based on the existing WinForms ones, as I have more control over them - this prevents my products from having bugs which just can't be fixed. I can also tweak the controls to do exactly what I need, rather than choosing a closest match. Building custom controls is relatively easy if you have the experience.
There is a basic tutorial on CodeProject which shows how to create a fancy Button. After that you should be able to figure out how to customize more complex controls.
Side-note:
While it's reasonably easy to develop custom controls in WinForms if you have the time to practice, WPF is a much better framework for building custom controls. WPF controls are designed specifically for customization, so there is a lot more flexibility.
I'm making pretty heavy use of the Panorama and Pivot controls in my WP7 applications. Is it possible to use these same controls in a standard Silverlight (4) application?
http://phone.codeplex.com/
I added the dll's, was able to compile and create the controls in my views. However; I was not able to "Scroll". I thought they used the "LeftMouseDown" event handlers but I guess I'm wrong.
You would need to do additional work to get them to work on the desktop: manipulation events are used in phone controls since they have much more information available such as the maniupation delta.
Being an open source project I am sure they could look into adding that support, would be good to open such a work item on that site perhaps. (There are no official Pivot and Panorama controls yet from Microsoft)
I created a panorama-like control for SL4 in the following blog post:
http://www.scottlogic.co.uk/blog/colin/2010/10/silverlight-as-an-alternative-to-powerpoint/
It might be a good starting point for making a more fully features control
I'm making my first WPF application, and its purpose is to generate 6 images from some data. Ideally I'd like to display them in the window, with little "forward" and "back" buttons, and a text indicator for where we are in the image-stack. Kind of like a "mini Windows Photo Gallery."
I think the way to do this might be some kind of customization of the ListView styles, but there was also the possibility of using Frame with custom WPF pages or something? I dunno, it seems like there should be a canonical way of doing this.
My current best approach is to customize ListView following the guidelines of one of my WPF books. If someone's already done this, or if there's a better way, please let me know!
You may want to look at the Slide.Show project from Vertigo. They released the source code for it as a WPF demo application. The application is a nice image viewer that you can borrow concepts from. (Microsoft mandated Vertigo to create technology demos for WPF)