13.2

Web Component Recognition

Addressing subitems of complex components like lists, tables or trees via index, as described in the previous section, is only possible because of a suitable component mapping in the 'Setup'. That way, QF-Test knows in what way certain functionalities like text fields, buttons, checkboxes, data tables, trees etc. have been implemented in the HTML code of the application.

Knowing the functionality of a component at recording time has the following advantages:

• Subitems will be addressed via index, as you already know. They will not be recorded as a separate component.
• With mouse clicks, the position where to replay the click to later on, will be optimized: the best position for a click to a button is its center, whereas with text fields it is important to click at the same position as during recording, since maybe you want to insert text at exactly that place.
• For check recording QF-Test provides a context sensitive popup menu offering various checks, depending on the functionality of the component: for data tables you will be offered checks for the whole row or column, for example. For text fields, on the other hand, you will find a check whether it is editable.
• QF-Test will save additional criteria for component recognition when it knows the funcionality of the component: with a button, for example, its text would be a relevant information for recognition. With text fields, however, the text contained would be quite useless in that respect. So QF-Test will look for a suitable label component and save that text.

Last but not least, the additional information QF-Test is able to gather, knowing the functionality of the component, will contribute towards the stability of the tests.

Configuration of the component recognition is required because Web applications have a limited set of basic components, which can be combined in flexible ways in order to implement complex components and designs. HTML tables, for example, are used, both, for just controlling the page layout and for displaying logical tables, like the VehicleTable. Without additional information, QF-Test cannot know where exactly the layout table ends and the logical table starts. This is why, without mapping, QF-Test would record something like VehicleTable.td for a table cell. The "td" coming from the HTML table data element "TD" and indicating a table cell, but nothing more. QF-Test would not able to assign a logical table row or column.

In the 'Setup' of the demo suite FirstWebTests.qft of the first chapter or the one created via the quickstart wizard in the second chapter the component mapping is done right after the start of the browser. The following figure shows the resolver registration node in the FirstWebTests.qft.

		Figure 13.2:  Web resolvers as installed in the FirstWebTests.qft

The node inform QF-Test which HTML element contains the data table und which HTML elements would be the data row and the data cell, among other mappings. The configuration was done specifically for the "CarConfigurator Web".

Note At this stage it is just important for you to know about the option to improve component recognition by the use of resolvers.

QF-Test automatically analyses the structure of web applications, detects the most common web UI toolkits (like Angular Material, ExtJS, GWT, SmartGWT, Vaadin,...) and installs the respective predefined resolvers.

Obviously, not all web applications have been developed using a toolkit, some use extended toolkits and not all existent toolkits have predefined resolvers with QF-Test. Hence you may come across custom component implementations.

So when you start testing your own web application and encounter issues with components not being accessed as reliably as expected, there might be the time to at least think about a resolver to improve the recognition behavior. Please get in touch with our support (support@qfs.de) then for assistance.

There is also a chapter in the technical reference part of the manual with more in-depth information about CustomWebResolvers and how to start an implementation on your own if you wish to do so.

Last update: 9/10/2024 Copyright © 2002-2024 Quality First Software GmbH