2. Rapise

AiRobot utilizes Anthropic Computer Use feature to enable automated exploratory testing. This also allows execution of some manual test directly with minimal or no conversion.

Rapise 8.3 introduces AI-powered capabilities for executing test cases. To leverage this feature, integrate the AiTester public page object into your framework. With AiTester, you can send text and image-augmented queries to AI models hosted by  OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, and Amazon Bedrock. Example applications include generating data, performing image-based verifications (e.g., detecting discrepancies or counting visual elements), and more.

If you have manual tests saved in Spira and want to automate some of them, you can import these tests into a Rapise Framework. From there, you can automate the steps using the record-and-edit features or leverage AI tools for automation.

If you already have Playwright tests and want to execute them using Rapise, or if you need Playwright's advanced features for complex scenarios, you can now run Playwright code directly within Rapise tests. Requires Rapise 8.3+.

If you need to migrate your existing Windows UI tests built for Appium Windows Driver to Rapise, here is how you can do it. Requires Rapise 8.3+.

If we need to download a binary file for which you have an URL, then here is the snippet.

Sometimes you need to check if string is matching specific pattern (i.e. has variable part like date, time etc). This topic covers the way to compare it in RVL.

Some web applications interact with camera. Each time browser requests camera access browser shows the prompt that blocks the page. Here we show how to bypass this prompt.

ExtentReports is a popular logger-style reporting library for automated tests. Since Rapise 8.2 there is a simple way of using it for custom reporting.

Since version 126.0.6465.0 ChromeDriver behaves according to W3C standard. Specifically:

Whenever active sessions is a list containing exactly one item, and that item is a HTTP session, but is not a BiDi session, then in the steps to fire beforeunload, implementations must act as if showing an unload prompt is likely to be annoying, deceptive, or pointless. This means that beforeunload prompts are never shown when there's an active HTTP-only session.

If you are facing issues installing Rapise, here are some common causes and resolutions that may help.

Many applications require users to enter one-time passwords to login. In this article we describe how to implement OTP generator in Rapise.

Rapise hosts embedded Chrome controls to display Start Page and Spira Dashboard. In rare cases it is necessary to pass additional arguments to the browser. For example proxy settings. Requires Rapise 8.1.29.44+.

Sometimes you need to have alternative reporting or to change/tweak some reporting messages to better fit your needs. It is possible via SeSOnReportMessage.

Sometimes, an automation scenario may require performing steps in two separate browser sessions that don't share cookies and cache. In this article, we'll describe how to manage multiple browsers within the same test script and switch between them.

Most complex part in Mobile testing is connecting to a simulator or device. In this article we describe steps necessary to configure the testing environment.

Note: In brackets we specify versions of software components we used at the time of writing this article.

The recommended approach is to use SpiraTest and RapiseLauncher for automated test execution. However, in some cases, this may not be an option. This article describes how to run Rapise tests using Jenkins.

When testing applications, you might often need to work with dates obtained from the application. This article provides a couple of helpful templates to get you started with parsing and manipulating these dates.

When testing mobile applications, you may need to draw graphics, such as a signature. This article provides a helper function that you can copy and customize for your tests.

BrowserStack enables you to test image capture and QR/Bar code scanning from BrowserStack’s mobile device camera. If your mobile app has features, such as check scanning, profile image capture, and QR/Bar code scanning, you can use this feature to automate the testing of such a feature in your app.

This is the second part of the iOS Testing Hints series. It describes how to configure real device testing if you dp not have a paid membership with Apple Developer.

Most complex part in Mobile testing is connecting to a simulator or device. In this article we describe steps necessary to configure the testing environment.

Note: In brackets we specify versions of software components we used at the time of writing this article.

Rapise Scripts are sequential. Sometimes you need to call a library that only has async API (i.e. OpenAI) and thus need to do it sequentially.

Ionic is an open source UI toolkit for building performant, high-quality mobile apps using web technologies — HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This means that being mobile, Ionic applications are web applications by nature. And it is much more convenient to test them via WebDriver rather than Appium. Requires Rapise 8.1+.

Sample framework including general purpose page objects that you may find useful in your test cases (KeyboardHelper, ListChecker, ManagedHelper, StringChecker, TableHandler). Help pressing special keys, comparing lists, accessing managed popup windows, checking unique strings and string formatting, working with standard web table. 

You may receive an .ipa file from a development team or download one published by a third-party vendor. In order to create and run automation scripts using a real iOS device you need to resign the .ipa file with your provisioning profile and development certificate. Learn how to do it from this article.

This is the mirror of  https://googlechromelabs.github.io/chrome-for-testing/known-good-versions-with-downloads.json

Using links from this JSON file you may download specific versions of Chrome that do not auto-update.

Sometimes there is a need to execute another test (sub-test) from a Rapise test. Doing so with Global.DoInvokeTest or RVL.DoPlayTest will run the sub-test in the context of the calling test, it will reuse same browser profile or mobile profile, it will use same loaded libraries. Such mode of execution may produce different results compared with running the sub-test standalone. To run the sub-test in isolated mode use Global.DoInvokeTestParallel and RVL.DoPlayTestParallel.

In rare cases Rapise installation fails. There may be different reasons for this including AV software, security configuration or corrupted Windows system. To help Rapise team to find out the root cause you may zip and share Rapise installation logs.

In most cases Flutter Web applications are built with CanvasKit renderer (flutter build web --web-renderer canvaskit). It means that by default UI elements of an application are not visible to test automation tools. They see just the big pane that covers all browser window. So does Rapise. However, there is a simple workaround that can be applied to solve this problem. 

Since version 115 of Chrome the central storage of chromedriver executables has changed. If you have Rapise version older than 8.0.28.45 than you need to take special steps to continue testing on Chrome 115 and above.

Rapise can export an execution report in HTML format, it even allows to choose from a few predefined templates. However you may want to create own template or customize existing one and export the report automatically at the end of test execution. Also you may want to convert generated HTML report to PDF format. Learn how from this article. 

If your team has only one or two test automation engineers, the best option for storing files of a testing framework is within SpiraTest. This approach is straightforward to implement and does not require specific configuration of test sets. However, if your testing framework is expected to grow significantly and you have multiple automation engineers, it is recommended to incorporate Git into your set of tools. Using Git offers several important benefits:

Improved file loading speed: By integrating Git with RapiseLauncher, the process of loading files from a repository is significantly faster. This can save valuable time, especially when dealing with larger frameworks or complex test suites.

Comprehensive source control features: Git provides a wide range of source control capabilities, including branching and merging. These features are essential for managing changes and collaborating effectively when multiple team members are working on the same codebase. It allows for better organization, tracking, and merging of code changes, ensuring a streamlined development process.

Enhanced teamwork: Git simplifies collaboration in a team environment. It allows team members to work on different branches or even different features concurrently, while providing mechanisms to merge and synchronize their work seamlessly. This enables better coordination and reduces the risk of conflicts when integrating changes made by multiple developers.

By incorporating Git into your testing workflow, you can optimize file loading speed, leverage powerful source control features, and foster a more efficient and collaborative team environment.

When writing automated tests, it is often necessary to create shared modules that can be used by multiple test cases. These modules serve various purposes, such as handling authentication for applications with a login page, performing necessary actions after test case completion, or working with custom controls within the application, such as dropdown menus, form fields, or grid/table controls.

In Rapise 8.0, you have the ability to address all these requirements. Rapise supports two types of modules: RVL (Rapise Visual Language) and JavaScript-based modules. These modules provide a flexible and powerful approach to handle common functionalities across your test cases.

By using RVL modules, you can visually create reusable components that encapsulate specific actions or sequences of steps. For example, you can create an RVL module that handles the authentication process by entering credentials and clicking the login button. This module can then be easily reused across multiple test cases that require login functionality.

Alternatively, you can leverage JavaScript-based modules in Rapise 8.0. JavaScript is a versatile programming language that allows you to create custom functions and logic to handle complex scenarios. With JavaScript-based modules, you can implement specific interactions with custom controls or perform actions that are not easily achievable through the visual interface of Rapise.

Both RVL and JavaScript-based modules in Rapise provide a seamless way to organize and reuse common functionalities within your automated tests. They help improve maintainability, reduce duplication of code, and enhance overall test efficiency.

Sometimes mobile testing scenarios involve interactions with built-in applications installed on a device. For example you may need to open Messages, locate SMS with a one-time code and use it in your application.

The true strength of test automation lies in its capability to execute the same test cases with varying input parameters. In Rapise 8.0, you can achieve this by utilizing multiselect and datacolumn parameters. Let's now explore a specific example to illustrate this concept.

When working as part of a team of automation engineers, the principles mentioned in the Single User Mode still apply. However, there are additional considerations to keep in mind, particularly when using a SpiraTest-based file repository.

If you are the sole automation engineer working on test creation with Rapise, it is recommended to follow these basic principles when developing a test automation framework. These guidelines specifically apply to the new Framework mode introduced in Rapise 8.0.

There are various situations where duplicating a test automation framework and linking it with another product in SpiraTest becomes necessary. For instance, you may want to create a copy to test the next major version of your application or start fresh with a clean product in SpiraTest. Another common scenario is when you need to transfer the test repository from SpiraTest to Git.

Rapise 8.0 provides the simplified way of parameterizing test sets . With the ability to define parameters and create configurations, managing different test scenarios has never been easier. Each configuration automatically includes all the defined parameters, but you can override specific parameter values as needed. If a configuration does not explicitly assign a parameter value, the default value is utilized during test set execution.

The Framework mode was introduced in Rapise 8.0 to simplify test case and test set management, as well as the management of parameters, page objects/modules, object repositories, and shared code. The legacy Single Test mode required dealing with Sub-Tests and linking tests to SpiraTest on a per test case basis, whereas in the Framework mode, there is a single button labeled Sync with Spira that handles everything. When this button is pressed, test cases and test sets are automatically synchronized with SpiraTest, and files are uploaded/downloaded.

In the Framework mode, team collaboration is streamlined because changes made by team members are automatically merged. In addition, it is possible to view diffs and resolve conflicts in complex cases.

In this article, we will demonstrate how to configure multi-browser execution of test cases in Rapise to ensure compatibility of a web application across major web browsers. This method is specifically designed for the Framework mode, which was introduced in Rapise 8.0.

In test automation projects, it is often necessary to parameterize test cases for various purposes. For instance, this could involve specifying different URLs for running tests in different environments (development, staging, production), or providing user credentials for logging into the system. Additionally, there might be a need to quickly modify playback speed, error handling, and screenshot settings for multiple test cases. In the Rapise 8.0 Framework mode, managing parameters is made simple and convenient, allowing easy creation and management of parameters, including the ability to run the same test case with different input data, such as filling a form with various values to create multiple records in a system database.

Rapise 8.0 has introduced a new  feature called the Framework mode.  In  this mode a new framework is created with the Common.js file which contains event handlers such as SeSOnTestInit and SeSOnTestFinish that get executed for every test case.

We had a customer request for a sample that demonstrates how to click on buttons in a desktop application (in this case a plugin for Microsoft Word) where instead of having to learn each of the buttons individually, you can learn the button container and then loop through the buttons using a Rapise RVL Map.

Sometimes you need to change format of date, time or number to put it into some form or to compare it with known value. Here is a couple of functions.

We had a customer that needed to load in a batch of customer users into our KronoDesk service desk platform. The built-in Excel add-on is only able to import help desk tickets, not users. So in this article we explain how you can use Rapise to bulk load in the data using the KronoDesk REST API.

Here is a couple of useful functions for the case you need to wait for a process.

Bitbar is a browser and device farm that enables it's clients to run cross-browser and mobile tests remotely.

Recently Rapise has problem working on some hosts with Windows Defender.  The problem occurs as a result of one of the key files being quarantined. Here we provide necessary workarounds.

When you test scenario has some sort of download we may need to wait/verify for download to be done. Here we provide some functions designed to help in such cases.

Use many sheets in RVL? Want to execute them all at once without calling one-by-one. Here is a simple solution.

Sometimes you need to be notified of one test with some summary. And here we give you an example. With this approach, interested users can receive an email about the status of a test with a report.

Sometimes you need to compare files: documents, invoices, logs etc. Sometimes you need to use direct comparison or pattern comparison. You may need to compare text, PDF or binary files. Here we provide one of the solutions for Rapise.

Chrome extension and Chrome HTML browser profile have been deprecated. Chrome extension and Chrome HTML browser profile have been deprecated. The reason is that Google is going to remove MV2 extensions from the store . At Inflectra we decided not to migrate to MV3 extension format because it is unlikely possible due to security changes (primary reason of appearance of MV3). To make Chrome based testing possible we implemented Selenium Based Recorder . So please consider switching to Selenium - Chrome browser profile.

Sometimes you need to manipulate a date string: add year, find same date next month, add an hour to a meeting start time and so on. Here we have a function for doing increments and subtractions of that kind. 

If you need specific browser extensions for running web tests you may specify them in Selenium profile.

In your Customer Area on Inflectra website you have a list of Rapise activation codes. To find out which code is used on a specific machine follow these simple steps. 

When you are recording/running a test via Selenium browser profiles in Rapise - by default a new user profile is created when new instance of a browser is launched. It means that new browser instance starts with empty cache, no cookies, etc. Sometimes it complicates testing. If you are testing a Web application that requires SMS/Email code to authorize a browser then you will have to do it every time. Automation of  input of SMS/Email codes may be really hard. It is much easier to authorize a browser manually once and then run tests for long period of time. To make it work you will need to configure a permanent user profile for the browser used for testing. Learn how to do it for Chrome/Edge from this article.

In the past we could use basic authentication to send an email but today this method of authentication is considered insecure and is disabled in major email services like Office 365 and Gmail. Read this article to learn how to send an email via SMTP with OAuth using Office 365 account.

If your Web testing scenario includes file downloading you may configure `Selenium - Chrome` profile and specify which folder to use to store downloaded files. 

This is a sample Excel file to download and use during demos.

Some of the Web resources used for automated tests have a browser's push notifications active.
However, push notifications creating unnecessary records in RVL table.

Rapise has built-in function Navigator.DoWaitFor to wait for object to appear. If you need to do the opposite add the following function into your User.js.

This article contains a function that may be used to upload file to FTP/SFTP.  This script uses WinSCP (https://winscp.net/eng/download.php) free tool to perform an upload.

By default Rapise uploads all the screenshots to a test run in Spira but you may need to upload a specific file, e.g. text file or a spreadhseet.

This function is useful for scripting DragNDrop for web tests.

Function to check if a given Excel workbook contains a sheet with the given name.

If your scripting is style is writing JavaScript and using Native Selenium API and you wish to dig inside Shadow DOM - read this short article. Requires Rapise 7.3+

Sometimes you want to move or clone tests. If tests have linked Rapise test cases, then you need to properly handle the move as described here.

Recent change in MS Edge browser affects Edge and Chrome browser extensions for Rapise. Here we show the workaround.

Recommended way of running Rapise tests on regular basis is using SpiraTest and RapiseLauncher. Other options include Azure DevOps and Jenkins. But there is also a way of running Rapise tests via command line. If this is what you are looking for then read this article.

Some application store valuable information in sqlite format. This is a way to deal with it.

Sometimes you need to check if some files are available in the .zip file. You may read the list of .zip file contents with Rapise.

To enter characters one may use AndroidObject.DoSendKeys, but sometimes you need to send special characters like ENTER. Learn how from this article.

For some automatic tests manual interaction is still required. For example, you may get authorization code to your phone and enter it to log into application. So you need to ask user for input to proceed execution.

Sometimes we need to get runtime property for the element. For example, we need to get a background color to know that element is highlighted for a user. Anything configured via stylesheet is usually a property: color, font, margins, dimensions, visibility etc.

If you are running a web test on a mobile device via Appium then you have three options of how to accept a popup window alert.

Sometimes you need to perform unattended installation of Rapise for test execution only. It may be a part of automated test execution step executed by CI/CD pipeline. Here is the snippet.

In some cases a test may automatically determine that it's failure is definitely caused by a bug in software under test.  In this case the test may create an incident in Spira using Spira.CreateIncident action. Requires Rapise 7.2+.

Sometimes you need to validate the whole page text. This sample demonstrates usage of plain text or MSWord file for this purpose with some help of myers-diff npm module

Sometimes we need to get runtime property for the element. For example, we need to get a background color to know that element is visually highlighted for a user. This topic shows how it may be done with Navigator.ExecJS.

If you connect to a Windows VM via RDP and see that all fonts are very small and it is hard to read text on screen then this article is for you.  If you can access the VM without RDP then you may change scaling via Display Settings in Windows and thus make text larger. But if this VM is Azure or AWS hosted VM then you may see a message: the display settings can't be changed from a remote session.

When you run a test with Spira (via RapiseLauncher) you may get a `Blocked` status for a test run. It is displayed in the Test Runs view and Test Sets view both in Spira and Spira Dashboard in Rapise.

The 2021 release wave 2 for Dynamics 365 contains hundreds of new features across Dynamics 365 applications. If you are using Rapise to test a Dynamics 365 for Sales instance you may be affected by the coming changes. To help you update existing tests we summarized differences (important for UI automation) between old and new versions of Dynamics 365 for Sales.

If you are using a Microsoft Azure VM to run UI tests  and do not want to keep the VM always running (to save budget) you may configure automatic start/stop and auto logon for the machine.

If a test is configured to capture screenshots during playback - Rapise puts then into Reports folder in the working directory of the test. If you want to copy screenshots to a different location or instruct Rapise to put images into a different folder - check out this article.

If you are new to Rapise or use it occasionally you may not know or remember all the cool objects and actions to use in your tests. With RVL Toolbox you can get access to required information by searching for it without leaving the RVL Editor.

Sometimes we need to do Diff and Merge operations when working with external Source Control systems (git, svn, etc). This utility (ExcelMerge) will enable this functionality.

Sometimes application components change and we need more flexibility when creating locators. You may use regex: prefix for locator components to make it more flexible. Very similar approach applies to Managed (DotNet Forms), Java and UI Automation locators.

Sometimes you need more control on whether to stop execution when an assertion fails. Assertion that does not stop execution is Soft Assertion.  With soft assertions you may force it to fail later when all expected errors are collected or keep running until the very end.

Sometimes you need to return a value or a set of values from RVL.DoPlaySheet or RVL.DoPlayScript calls. This sample shows you how.

If you are testing a native mobile application using  SeeTest you have an option to switch to NATIVE_APP_INSTRUMENTED context and record/playback tests in it.

Learn how to query AWS Secret from Rapise.

Requires Rapise 6.7+

Learn how to configure Rapise to run cross-browser tests on AWS Device Farm.

Requires Rapise 6.7+

If you use Microsoft Defender Antivirus to protect your system then you may need to perform certain steps to use Rapise effectively.

If you use Avast Antivirus to protect your system then you may need to perform certain steps to install and use Rapise.

Rapise help system has been updated to latest template introducing new search and navigation capabilities. The side effect is that is it not compatible with default HTML-based viewer engine and may look corrupted.

If a desktop application is dynamic and recorded locators do not work then there is a way to search for elements using UIAObject.DoFindElementByCondition and UIAObject.DoFindElementsByCondition.
Requires Rapise 6.6+

Rapise REST module uses 100 seconds timeout by default. Since Rapise 6.6 you may make it longer or shorter.

We sometimes need to dump diagnostic information to the report. It may be values of some or all local variables.

By default Rapise reports an error when REST service request fails. With the negative test the request should fail, so we want the reporting to behave differently.

It is a 3 step process:

1. SaveAs or Clone the test with a new name

2. Save it to Spira

3. Delete old test copy from Documents module in Spira (optional)

Here we show a few examples on how to combine strings in RVL.

Sometimes we need to override the message written to the report when some action is performed.
 

It is possible to use Free Apple Developer account for iOS testing. But it requires some knowledge and time to setup.

Connecting to the mobile devices hosted by SeeTest is easy. Learn how from this article. Requires Rapise 6.5+.

Along with Rapise 6.5 we are releasing an update to the RapiseChromeExtension.  The new version (v3) is back compatible. It means that older versions of Rapise should work with it without issues. Rapise 6.5+ will require you to update the extension if you have RapiseChromeExtension v2.

Starting from Rapise 6.5 you may record both Web and Desktop actions into the same test.

Legacy Web applications still may use basic authentication. So when you navigate to an application URL the browser shows a dialog with Username and Password fields to enter.  The content of this dialog is not a Web content so recording and playback in a Web test will not work.

Are you writing XPath to find an element using its inner text but it does not work? Most likely the text contains non-breaking spaces.

This situation is described in detail in our UI Test Automation Playground.

Here is a number of ways of doing it.

When a test is executed by RapiseLauncher it may access key properties of the test run,  custom test set properties and test case parameters.

Requires Rapise 6.4.19.16+

The world moves forward and  our older KB articles related to TinyMCE became outdated. In this article we present a modern way (as of year 2020) of automating TinyMCE controls.

If you want to use Unified Service Desk with Chrome and test it with Rapise you need to configure it properly.

Rapise is available as a SaaS solution. Here we describe step-by-step guide how to make several Rapise cloud instances ready for test execution.

When you run Rapise automated tests using RapiseLauncher the system will automatically embed the images from Rapise into the various test cases and test run reports. By default the report format has relatively small images so that they can fit easily into the tables of expected result and actual results. However some users have asked for ways to make the images bigger.

Sometimes we need more fine-grained control over screenshots. Here we describe the way of using H column for defining which actions will have what kind of screenshot captured.

Automatic screenshots on every test step may occupy too much space. Learn how to make  a screenshot on failure only.

Since version 6.3 Rapise has support for local browser and mobile profiles. Using it you may package browser profiles along with tests. What if you want to reuse browser profiles between different projects? Or have sets of profiles for different situations? You may now set path to profile directory using a special global variable.  Supported in Rapise 6.4+

Sometimes we need to process data in groups or even in hierarchical way. Here we will show how to make it using plain table and loop in RVL.

A customer asked us why Rapise uses Pascal Case names for the various operations, functions and properties, as well as the reason why operations are prefixed with a "Do" action name.

Learn how to connect to a support session and how to enable Rapise Expert to remotely control your Rapise instance.

Some unit testing tools produce reports in JUnit XML format. Here we show how to import it into Rapise test report.

When you do recording of test steps for a Web application - Rapise by default captures page URLs and stores them in the object repository. Learn how to  disable URL recording from this article.

Requires Rapise 6.4+

For Rapise training purposes we may need a simple desktop application that can be executed on any Windows version. What can be simpler than Windows Calculator?

.properties is a file format mainly used in Java related technologies to store the configurable values. Here we show how to work with it in Rapise.
 

Below we provide the information on JavaScript version used by Rapise.

We've seen systems where Software Reporter Tool (which is a part of Google Chrome) may produce very high CPU load and make system  suspending/resuming processes randomly. Because of this Rapise may not be able to connect to Chrome for recording/playback. In fact many things may go wrong when CPU load is 100%.

When you install Rapise on some systems you may get an error message:

0x800700e8 - The pipe is being closed

If you need to get the size of the string, then here is a couple of possible ways for doing it.

SendKeys is good for making key combinations, but this way does not work when you need to press special key. Here is a useful workaround.

To compare images in JavaScript you may use Tester.AssertImage.

Rapise 6.3 includes an experimental feature - new UIAutomation2 locator for UIAutomation based desktop testing. Rather than specifying a path from the element tree root to the element this locator relies on built-in ability of UIAutomation to search for elements based on property values.

Imaging you have a table with dynamic data on the page. It is not possible to learn every cell. But it is possible to parameterize the locator of a cell and access cells you need during test playback.

Sometimes you need to specify object and data for it in the map. Here we will show how to make it using Rapise built in maps and available APIs.

By default straight forward XPath to SVG primitives will not work.  So XPath ending like .../svg[2]/path will fail. Here is a workaround.

This topic covers more detailed description on how to pass map from one Sheet to another in RVL

Here we will cover several ways of passing parameters and returning values from Sub-Tests.

To ensure that web tests always run on a browser window of a specific size you may use different techniques.

If you need to connect Database object to PostgreSQL database follow these simple steps.

If you need to connect Database object to MySQL database follow these simple steps.

Sometimes you need to feed your application with demo data that is human-readable but still random. Here is such a generator for Rapise.

NodeJS provides a lot of unique features and plethora of features implemented in npm packages. Here we describe how to combine such a script with a Rapise test.

Firefox 56+ supports headless mode on Windows.  You can use it to Run Rapise tests via Selenium integration.

Rapise scripts and engine are mostly implemented in JS. Some people prefer to use 3rd party editors for scripting. This is helpful when integrating Rapise tests into bigger development pipeline together with other scripts and config files. Here we explain where information about objects and types is provided for Code Completion/Intellisense support in 3rd party editors.

Some controls require mouse wheel input. Here is how to do it.

If you prefer writing test steps manually in JavaScript then it might be helpful to automatically learn all child objects of a Java application to make them available for scripting.

By default Rapise is using Java Accessibility Bridge by changing some Java Runtime Environment (JRE)-wide configuration files. So all applications using same JRE will use the modified version. If your goal is to have Accessibility only for test runs, then there is another way of doing that.

Sometimes compared images partially differ due to some dynamic part. Here we show how to do partial comparison in this case.

Good object naming is important for test script clarity and readability. Default names are detected during record/learn session and results sometimes are cumbersome, obscure or irrelevant. Here we show how to give proper names to objects.

In this article we will get contents of the HEAD element to get the links to all referenced stylesheets. It may be useful if you plan to verify that a set of CSS did not change for a page.

We are getting a lot of questions on how to use Rapise with Citrix and remotely accessed VMs . Here is the answer.

UI Automation is a default technology for testing desktop applications on Windows. If your application is not .NET or Java then  Rapise will turn on UI Automation library during recording. If some elements in your application are not recognized or there are issues with playback of recorded steps then most likely your application is using custom UI controls. You may inspect those controls and send information to Rapise support team to get recommendations on how to proceed with testing.

Sometimes you need to go through all links to check something. Here are two ways: JS and RVL of doing it with Rapise.

When you execute Rapise tests via Rapise Launcher - test reports and logs are automatically uploaded to Spira. But verbose level is always set to Level 1 by Rapise Launcher. If you need more detailed log set verbose to 2 or 3 in test case properties.

Sometimes you need to check that some text is available in the PDF document. Sometimes you need to extract some value from it. So you need access to plain text content of the document.  Here we explain how to do it with Rapise.

To run a PowerShell script use Global.DoLaunch action.

Rapise supports testing of Java applications. In the case that application is launched using Java Web Start (JWS) additional steps are needed to successfully test an application.

This article is for those who test a desktop application via  UI Automation library.  Since desktop applications are frequently built using UI controls from different vendors  and the number of such controls available on the market is pretty big (> 1k)  - Rapise may not have out-of-the-box support for some controls in your application.  For such cases Rapise offers a low level API to navigate UI Automation tree of elements inside an application and read/write element properties. In this tutorial we'll show how to use this API and quickly add minimal support for a custom control.

Checking if element is visible on screen may be a tricky task. It's usually not a problem in manual testing but there are nuances when you do test automation.

If a test needs to verify existence or absence of a specific option in a dropdown you can do it via a simple function presented below.

Windows may reboot because of various reasons. If you use a machine to run Rapise tests on regular basis than you want RapiseLauncher to be started automatically after system reboot.

Every test has a User.js file and it is a place to put custom code and functions. This code must follow a few rules.

When Rapise starts execution of a test, it sets working directory. If a test refers to a file using a relative path then the absolute path is calculated using the working directory.

In some cases it may be convenient to construct Rapise Objects dynamically rather than capture in advance with record/learn. In Web tests you can do it via Navigator.Find and Navigator.SeSFind.

In some cases it may be useful to analyze browser-side logs. For example, if you are using Navigator.ExecJS action.

In this short topic we describe how to get the value of a window title. The way depends on the application type.

There are different techniques one can use to close the application being tested from Rapise. The method to choose may depend on the application type.

If you install Rapise on non-vanilla system, e.g. old workstation with a lot of other software, especially with anti-virus and development tools, it may end-up in a state when some components are not registered  successfully and some files are blocked.  In this article we describe symptoms and ways to cure.

In the unlikely case of unsuccessful deinstallation of Rapise (e.g. if computer power switched off during deinstallation,  or Windows Installer process terminated) there is a way to manually fix the system and complete interrupted deinstallation process.. Automatic uninstall may no longer properly work and leave files in Program Files folder.

The toast message is like an alert box that is only shown for a couple of seconds when something happens (i.e. when the user clicks on a button, submits a form, etc.). This article describes how to deal with toast messages in Rapise.

Sometimes you need to press Tab, Return, Backspace to the web page. Here is how you may do it through WebDriver.

You may use extra RVL columns for your own purposes. In the simple case for storing additional information (notes, links). In more advanced cases extra columns may affect script behavior: add report attributes, control screenshots, control custom actions, assign variable values etc. Here we provide live example of one of such use-cases.

In this article we describe how to write data to an external Excel spreadsheet during test playback. Both RVL and JavaScript examples are given.

Sometimes object location is unstable. The same object may be identified by different location path or XPath depending on application version or state.

Global.DoSendKeys is a way to to that, but there is also a little trick required to make it happen.

Desktop applications may use window titles to show important information to a user. In some cases the title contains subject of a displayed entity or time.  Since Rapise uses window title while searching for an object during playback - the search may fail. This complication may be resolved if you replace recorded windows title with a regular expression.

If an object can not be found at playback and it is obvious that object location has changed because of application update (differs from the case when location is dynamic!) then the best way to fix the test is simply relearn the object.

There are situations when object location attribute  depends on the object data and it is not possible to record/learn all such objects in advance.  In this case it may be convenient to calculate object location at playback time using FormatString and SetLocatorOpts actions of the RVL global object.

Better to see something once than to hear about it a thousand times. If a Web element can not be found on the page using given XPATH expression and you do not know why - you have an option to save the DOM tree of the page and ask someone else with Rapise for assistance. Here is how.

Rapise supports many standard UI controls out-of-the-box. And there are even more custom UI controls that are not supported. This is why Rapise has a well-defined way of adding extensions.  To add support for a custom control first it makes sense to Spy on it. If you are dealing with Managed or Java applications you can Save Type Information for the control and also save UI tree structure/properties to a file.  Send this information to Rapise team to get an advice on how to add support for the new control.

Once you have your Firefox updated to version 64 Rapise may have problems connecting to it. Here is a quick workaround until new release of Rapise addressing the problem shows up.

Yes, in general, Rapise can automate most web applications using mobile Safari running on iOS (either on a real or simulated device). However there are some limitations.

This article is obsolete. The recommended way of testing Web applications is to record tests on a desktop browser via Selenium-based profile and then execute using Mobile profiles. See How to run a cross-browser test on a mobile device for more details.

If you run Rapise tests via Selenium WeDriver you may need to manipulate browser cookies. Learn how from this post.

It is tricky do deal with WPF calendar control. Here we introduce a number of supplementary functions to copy in your project and use to modify and read  Calendar and DatePicker data.

We often get asked this question: "We have Rapise and want to automate a native iOS app that is available on the application store", can we do it?

More and more computers are equipped with High DPI displays. Though high resolution looks beautiful it may bring some issues. One of them is broken recording in Rapise.

Rapise is evolving product and we release new versions of it from time to time. If you plan to upgrade your copy of Rapise follow these simple steps.

Though Rapise can execute it's native recorded tests via WebDriver - some users prefer to write their tests in pure Selenium API. In this post we describe how to perform complex mouse and keyboard sequences via Selenium API in Rapise tests.

Sometimes when you first install and open Rapise, the Start Page does not display correctly. This article explains the cause and solution to fix the issue.

Of the unique needs of a requirements and test management system when working in the Defense industry, specifically when designing, building, and testing mission systems, is the ability to link individual test steps to the requirements. Since v5 of SpiraTest, this has been possible inside the Spira user interface, however many customers have been looking for a way to map test steps to requirements in bulk using Excel.

When Appium installs an application at the beginning of a test session - Android may ask for permissions (e.g. access to media files, camera, etc.). Until such prompt is dismissed - Main activity is not launched. It prevents the test from proceeding.  Learn how to configure the Mobile Profile to automatically grant required permissions on install.

In Mobile Spy of Rapise when switching from NATIVE_APP to WEBVIEW context you may see an error message:

Chrome version must be >= 55.0.2883.0

From this article you will learn how to fix this.

When doing mouse click from Rapise it is sometimes need to use offset coordinates. You will learn:

1. When explicit coordinates are needed

2. How to determine them

Learn how to break down a long scenario into manageable pieces in RVL. Creating a purchase order in Dynamics AX takes many steps: start PO process, enter basic details, fill order lines, approve, receive, invoice. In RVL you can create separate sheets to implement stages of a complex test.

Sometimes when you are using Rapise, you have to use external ActiveX or .NET objects to perform specific actions. You can get Rapise to display intellisense for those objects.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is well suited for processes that are clearly defined, repeatable and rules based. With Rapise you can create software robots that can do boring repetitive tasks and free employee time for more creative work.

Below you will find a brief description of RPA tasks that Rapise can do.

Most complex part in Mobile testing is connecting to a simulator or device. In this article we describe steps necessary to configure the testing environment.

Note: In brackets we specify versions of software components we used at the time of writing this article.

Sometimes it makes sense to automate certain steps of a Manual Test. If you prefer to implement automatic steps in RVL then include the AUTO  helper function into your test.

Common scenario: register a user and receive registration confirmation link by email. The most painless way for doing it.

If anything can be automated - it will be automated. You can use Rapise to automate day-to-day processes within a company to free your employees for more creative and productive job. Imagine you have data from third-party system in Excel file and you want to import it into Dynamics AX instance. You have a choice either to develop a software program that does the import via Dynamics AX API or you can create an automation script in Rapise.

A test may contain a lot of objects. If you want to locate an object in the object tree you may use the filter box.

When you record a test Rapise captures UI elements with which you interact and adds them as objects to the Object Tree of a test. Each object has a Type (Button, Text, Label, Tree, Grid, ...) and Location. Rapise uses Location attribute of an object to find it in the application during test execution.

When you execute a recorded test, sometimes, Rapise may not find some object on screen and display Object is not found error message in the report. If you see that the object is visible you can check if Rapise can find it or not without running the test.

If anything can be automated - it will be automated. You can use Rapise to automate day-to-day processes within a company to free your employees for more creative and productive job. Imagine you have data from third-party system in Excel file and you want to import it into Dynamics NAV instance. You have a choice either to develop a software program that does the import via Dynamics NAV API or you can create an automation script in Rapise.

If you need to make a copy of data in a Table/Grid object - you may simply save it to Excel file with a single function call.

Working example of test framework designed to maximize flexibility and get the most from Rapise productivity features.

Sometimes test set requires a value passing through the sequence of test cases. Good example is User ID assigned during sign-in and then used in subsequent test cases.

Another use case is when test case requires some input value that should always be unique.

Many views in Dynamics NAV have several collapsible panes: General, Lines, Invoice Details, etc. They are also known as Fast Tabs.  Learn how to ensure that a Fast Tab is expanded and scrolled into view before entering data into the fields in this tab.

Requires Rapise 5.7+

Sometimes an element on a web page may be invisible because it is out of a viewport.  Real user scrolls a page vertically and horizontally to reach such an element. How to achieve same behavior with Rapise?

Each web application is unique in terms of assigning attributes to elements and this complicates the process of generating XPath locators. Some applications assign dynamic IDs to elements, some use ARIA attributes and some do not, some values of class attribute have meaning related to element position and some just used for styling . There are also cases when an app contains hidden DOM layers which stack on top of each other. So usage of same set of attributes for generating XPath is not efficient and may lead to weak locators that break after application reloading or slight modification. To cope with these problems Rapise introduces Web App Profile. It is a simple JSON file of a defined structure that instructs Rapise how to build XPath for elements in a particular application. From this article you will learn how to define a profile for your web application.

Unified Service Desk (USD) is a hybrid application. It is a windows desktop application with embedded browser components. Follow this guide to setup a test automation framework for USD.

Sometimes when you are testing an application written in Angular 4, the text box will not accept a value that is correct during playback (e.g. zip code is not in the right format) when you use DoSetText to set the value.

Sometimes you want to override certain Rapise settings (e.g. the Command Interval) from within SpiraTest. For example you might to run one test set more slowly than other test sets because the environment is slower. This article explains how you can easily pass settings values from SpiraTest to Rapise.

By default,  when you want to use Rapise to record and playback web tests using either Chrome or Firefox, you simply go to the appropriate web browser "store" and install the extension directly from the store. However sometimes you are testing web applications on a machine with no Internet Connectivity.

When you run a test with Selenium - Chrome profile the browser is launched with a warning message below the address bar. It can be disabled.

Many test automation scenarios require performing same steps with different data. For example, login into application with different user credentials, or enter several lines of a sales order into a table. This is data-driven testing. From this article you will learn how to do this in Rapise Visual Language (RVL) and JavaScript modes.  You will also learn how to define data within a test and in external spreadsheet.

Rapise supports many types of objects in Web, Mobile and Desktop applications.  And each object has a set of actions that can be applied to it.  You may want to override behavior of existing action or add a new one. Learn how from this article.

If you don't have some of the standard Window fonts installed (e.g. Courier New), when you try and launch Rapise, it will fail to open correctly. This article provides information on the problem and solution.

You have recorded some basic test scripts in Rapise, and now you want to easily extract the steps into a reusable function that can be called from the main test script. This article explains how you can do this for both RVL and JavaScript based tests.

Some test scenarios require running processes as different user or entering user credentials into Internet Explorer security prompt.  Rapise can enter user credentials into Windows Security dialog on Windows 10 automatically.

Dynamics 365 Business Central is a successor of Dynamics NAV 2017 Web Client. Both solutions were built by Microsoft using same technology though they have a few differences. Rapise includes a library DomDynamicsNAV which makes test recording and playback of Dynamics NAV web clients a pleasant thing. From this post you will learn basics of recording a reliable test for these solutions as well as test playback troubleshooting methods. We'll use Dynamics 365 Business Central as system under test.

Follow these simple rules to record entering of data into Dynamics NAV grids. For example, entering of new order lines into a Sales Order.

When you try and do a substring on a value returned from a database, you may get an error about the object not supporting the property.

Rapise 5.7+ performs scrolling automatically before clicking on a cell. Also there is DoScroll action that does explicit scrolling.

In Rapise 5.6 and below use this simple function to scroll your Dynamics NAV table left, right, up, bottom.

When you have a user defined function in Rapise, you sometimes want to jump to it.

Sometimes you want to have multiple nested loops to test a set of test data (for example loop over a list of users, and for each user, loop over a list of browsers). In JavaScript you can use standard nested loops, this article explains how you can do the same using RVL.

Sometimes when you are using Rapise, you see an error on the screen, or something doesn't work as expected. In that case, our support team will need a copy of the log file that is likely to contain the error message. This article explains how to get that log file.

Some applications show unexpected popup windows. This could be feature announcements, update reminders, license expiration reminders, alerts, internal messengers and so on. Here we are going to show a solution for this problem.

When you do UI test automation and create a big enough test coverage the probability of having certain portion of flaky tests increases. In many cases there is no reasonable way in terms of time and resources to mitigate all flakiness from the test coverage. In some cases even a flaky test may still be useful.

At Inflectra we think that UI Test Automation Framework is a set of tools with specific features that enables QA teams to develop and run tests, and effectively analyze test execution results.

In some cases it makes sense to launch a browser in private mode to ensure exact same conditions every time you run a test.  This helps to cope with such things as remembered accounts or pending sessions not disconnected by a previous test.  Learn how to properly adjust browser profiles from this article.

Normally you can install the add-ons for Chrome and Firefox directly from the browser's app store (just search for Rapise). This is the easiest option, and avoids the need to run the browsers in developer mode.

Sometimes you need to compare two tables. Here we introduce a function to compare two spreadsheets.

BrowserStack supports automated browser testing via Selenium and Appium on real iOS and Android devices.  Learn how to configure Rapise to connect to Browserstack via Appium.

Unfortunately, Windows10 has a nasty habit of frequently updating itself and then breaking existing applications. We found that the February 14th, 2018 Windows10 update corrupted the Excel device driver that Rapise uses to access the RVL test script spreadsheet during playback.

It is common to use UI tests with RDP connected to remote VM. By default this works only while RDP window is open and client is connected. On disconnect remote session gets locked and UI becomes unavailable for the test. This topic covers a workaround.

Sometimes it is required to have list of files from some folder. Here we demonstrate how to get this list and how to iterate through it in RVL.

Sometimes when recording a test against a mobile responsive web site, it is useful to be able to record on the local browser (before playing it back against a cloud service such as SauceLabs, Browserstack, etc.). However you want to always record using a specific browser window size.

BrowserStack enables testing of your website for cross browser compatibility on real browsers. Instant access to multiple desktop and mobile browsers.  Learn how to configure Selenium  profiles in Rapise to enable connection to BrowserStack services.

Requires Rapise 5.3+

We show how to do data generation for test scenario using RVL Variable loop in Rapise. This sample shows how to produce a sequence of filenames: FILE1.txt, FILE2.txt, FILE3.txt and so on.

Sometimes when you try and install Rapise, you will see the error message "The Pipe is Being Closed", this article provides some solutions for this message.

Attaching to external .XLS spreadsheet in RVL may be easily done in RVL by use of Range type of the Map.

Check that Dynamics NAV client is installed on a machine and launch it if it is not started yet with this simple function.

Visualforce is the component-based user interface framework for the Force.com platform. Visualforce components can be tested with Rapise just like default Salesforce interface.

It is possible to access such objects form RVL using one of the methods shown in this article.

Sometimes web applications use custom DOM attributes for internal purposes. XPath locators containing those attributes are sometimes more stable and resilient. Rapise contains features intended to simplify utilization of such attributes.

Sometimes it is useful to have common functionality and variables in a separate JavaScript source file. This topic explains the steps to do it.

In order for Rapise to be able to test a thick-client desktop application written using Qt, it needs to support Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA), as described in this article - http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/accessible-qwidget.html

This article demonstrates how to check your application to see if it supports MSAA.

Sometimes a test needs to run a process as a different user (not the logged in user executing Rapise). It is not possible to use runas command for this purpose because it forces a user to type a password manually.  From this short article you will learn how to reach the goal.

Sometimes passwords need to stay secure. Here are simple steps on how to hide some information in Rapise.

Here we will demonstrate usage of Global.DoDecrypt and Global.DoEncrypt available since Rapise 5.4.

In some cases a test needs to run a Windows shell command (e.g. dir, ipconfig, gpresult) and capture/parse output. Learn how to do this in Rapise from this short article.

Sometimes the goal is to find specific image on the screen. It may be special symbol, map pointer or an icon. This topic contains ImageFinder and sample test demonstrating its capabilities.

There are several types of delays one can use to slow down test execution.

1. Implicit
2. Explicit fixed
3. Explicit with timeout

Recommended approach is to use SpiraTest and RapiseLauncher designed for this task. In some cases it is not an option and we need to execute a test directly. 

Note: this manual is out of date. Please refer to the new one for Jenkins 2.440 instead.

In general Rapise installs on disconnected PC without problems. However, if PC contains old version of windows without most recent root certificates then installer may fail due to inability to check application authenticode certificate. This topic explains a workaround.

Sometimes we need to track the time taken by an operation. This KB contains suggested approach for Rapise and working sample.

In some cases it is convenient to store tests in the same Git repository where source code of an application under test is located. For example, if you are using Visual Studio Team Services.  From this article you will learn how to execute Rapise tests stored in a Git repository with SpiraTeam and leverage the power of SpiraTeam reporting and analysis features.

This article is obsolete. There is much simpler approach with use of RapiseLauncher Extension for Azure DevOps.

In this guide we describe how to master tests for Dynamics NAV application using Rapise.

• Rapise provides a complete automated testing solution that can handle all of your technologies in one environment. With support for web, mobile and desktop applications and a wide variety of third-party component libraries.

• Microsoft Dynamics NAV is an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software suite for midsize organizations. The system offers specialized functionality for manufacturing, distribution, government, retail, and other industries.

Sometimes we need to disable screenshots for a while (during some long loop) or when doing some specific operations. Here we show how to do it.

The notion of the integrated test framework usually implies common functions and shared data between tests.  Here we provide sample configuration making sharing Spira-friendly.

This article is obsolete. If you are on Rapise 8.0+ then we recommend to follow the new Framework Mode methodology and start with the Benefits of using the new Framework mode KB article.

This article contains of overview of object recognition by UI automation tools in general and its implementation in Rapise in particular.

It is common task to search for an element by its text. In some cases it is the fastest way to find one. This approach works in web browsers and selenium targets.

byname and bytext is an universal feature common for Web, UI Automation and WinForms (Managed) targets. Here we consider WinForms (.NET) desktop applications.

Model-based testing is widely used for a long time for testing software systems. Typical application fields include telecommunication protocols, embedded software, server software, automotive and reactive systems. What about model-based testing of desktop, web and mobile GUI applications?

byname and bytext simplify finding objects by text or by name. 

When working on UI test automation for a web application a test engineer has to deal with XPATH expressions. They are used to locate UI elements during test execution. It is very important to use such XPATH expressions that do not break when developers update the application. Good XPATH expressions which still find required elements after UI modification can be referred to as resilient or elastic.

In this article we'll consider several examples of elastic XPATH expressions.

Writing JavaScript code in Rapise is fun and easy. It has full featured editor with folding, syntax highlighting and code complete. From this article you will learn how to enhance Rapise code complete with support for external types.

From this article you will learn how to pass additional parameters to Selenium or Appium target, even if they can not be specified in a profile.  This recipe can be also used to override parameters of a profile right from a test code.

Requires Rapise 5.3+

Sauce Labs allows users to run tests in the cloud on different combinations of browser and OS versions as well as mobile devices and emulators. Learn how to configure Selenium and Mobile profiles in Rapise to enable connection to Sauce Labs services.

Requires Rapise 5.3+

Let's assume you have a cross-browser test which was created on desktop and can be successfully executed on any desktop browser (Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari). You want to execute this test on your mobile devices or emulators. Learn how from this article.

Requires Rapise 5.3+

Essential information to get started with testing Dynamics 365 for Sales.

Appium requires certain version of Chrome to work with. Even Android 7.0 is shipped with Chrome 51 and this is too old version. From this article you will learn how to upgrade Chrome on your Android emulator.

This topic describes how to read and write JSON data in Rapise.

Rapise connects to mobile devices (iOS and Android) using the standard Appium mobile device testing API (similar to Selenium WebDriver for web browsers). This articles describes how you can use Rapise to connect to a mobile device farm using the Appium mobile device profiles inside Rapise. We use Kobiton as an example.

During the evaluation of Rapise 5.2 for Microsoft Dynamics AX testing, a customer collected the following tips and tricks from our support team (thanks Maxime!).

As described in a recent article, Microsoft Dynamics has been going through major changes in the past year, there are now many different products that all bear the 'Microsoft Dynamics' brand, including older legacy tools such as Dynamics AX, NAV, GP, SL and CRM and the new Dynamics 365 platform which has different modules (Sales, Operations, etc.).  This article helps you know which tool you have when you need help from our Rapise support team.

Headless Chrome on Windows  is introduced in version 60 . Learn how to configure Rapise to run cross-browser tests using non-GUI mode of Chrome.

Sometimes Object ID used as a parameter to the function or object Action (such as Global.DoWaitFor(objId) ). RVL contains special feature intended to make pick-up of object from the list easier.

We often get requests for ways to slow down the playback speed of Rapise so that the application under test (AUT) has time to respond. This article describes the different ways and provides suggestions as to when you should use each one.

Modern technologies allow to drag&drop files into a browser window to upload them to a server. Such a feature works for example in Chrome browser in Google Drive and Photo applications. In this howto post we'll show how to automate drag&drop of files from Windows Explorer to Google Drive opened in Chrome.

Rapise is a test automation platform for desktop, web and mobile applications. It is designed for building automated and manual end-to-end UI tests and fits any TestOps infrastructure.

Elasticsearch is a distributed, RESTful search and analytics engine capable of solving a growing number of use cases. As the heart of the Elastic Stack, it centrally stores your data so you can discover the expected and uncover the unexpected.

From this article you will learn how to integrate Rapise and Elasticsearch together.

Jasmine is a behavior-driven development framework. If you want to test UI with Rapise in a behavior-driven way learn how to tie Rapise and Jasmine together.

Symptoms:

1. When new recording is started Rapise always opens new IE window
2. Spy does not show DOM tree
3. During playback no object is found

Rapise can be extended with DOM libraries to add support for custom UI controls used in modern web applications.  Many of such applications work in Chrome browser. So there may be a need to debug Rapise code embedded into Chrome via Rapise Extension for Chrome. Most powerful and easy way to do this is to add VS Code into the equation.  From this article you will learn how to tie Rapise, Chrome and VS Code together.

Some web site show Auth prompt when entering some area. The prompt is rendered differently by different browser. Here we show how to bypass the prompt in automation scripts.

Example of adding support for Java UI control in Rapise.

With the release of the new Rapise Visual Language (RVL), there have been some questions about how to use it to organize tests, subtests and multiple sheets. For example:

• I see that I can create multiple sheets.  How does Rapise handle multiple sheets?  Does it run each in order or can they be run separately?
• Is it possible to call a test in RVL from another test in RVL?  In other worlds, how can I create subtests and scenarios using RVL?

One of the most popular programming languages in the world is JavaScript. Initially conceived by Netscape as a web page scripting language, christened JavaScript to leverage the popularity of Java (which was fairly new and sexy at the time) and now used for servers (NodeJS), desktop apps (ReactNative) and for us at Inflectra, the core technology at the heart of our Rapise test automation system. This article provides some useful resources for those first learning the language.

A customer of ours was using Rapise on a computer that was also running the ANSICON application. This changed some of the settings in the Windows registry that affected the Windows command-line parser. This article explains how to clean up the command-line to allow both applications to work correctly together.

This is a short sample demonstrating how one can format a date.

When performing web service testing using Rapise you may need to change the HTTP headers being sent with the request. This article provides suggestions on the different ways of doing this.

Sometimes it is convenient to store function names in strings and use those strings to call actual functions. The article describes two ways of how you can do this in Rapise.

This article shows how to select paragraph of text using various types of mouse activities. Also it demonstrates use of clipboard Global.DoTrim function. Working example is attached.

A customer had a question - is there a way to suppress the DoSetText or DoSendkeys methods from sending their text to the logs. They didn't want users to see this text in the Rapise (and SpiraTest) logs because they contained sensitive information (e.g.  passwords).

One of our users had a webpage with a form. When it was submitted partially filled, the page came back (after being processed on the backend) with some errors about incomplete form. If the user tried to navigate away from this page via a link (or close the page/browser tab) he was prompted with browser's standard "Are you sure you want to leave this page?" dialog. He needed a way for Rapise to handle this popup when recording and playing back the web test.

Rapise 4.0 supports the testing of Adobe AIR Flex applications using the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR). Rapise can test applications using a wide variety of different Flex controls and supports testing both Flex 3 and Flex 4 applications.

Rapise 4.0 supports the testing of Adobe Flex applications that are executed by the Adobe Flash Player inside the Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome web browsers. Rapise can test applications using a wide variety of different Flex controls and supports testing both Flex 3 and Flex 4 applications.

[We have depreciated support for testing Adobe Flex/Flash applications in Rapise 5.0 and later, so this article is provided for use by existing customers]

We had a customer with a problem related to having <div> elements with complex display styles applied inside an HTML anchor tag <a>. The anchor tag was reporting back as having zero size (0px) in IE, so when Rapise tried to locate it to click on it, the browser was not able to find it.

Sometimes you need to run a  Windows batch file (.BAT) from Rapise. Unlike an executable, you cannot simply use Global.DoLaunch() to execute it since it's not actually an application. This article provides the code you need to use.

When you are testing a web application that has popup windows (where the popup is a whole new browser window) you will need to make a slight change to the test script to enable it to playback successfully in Internet Explorer (no change is needed for Chrome or Firefox).

When you are testing a Java application using either Swing or AWT you may run into some issues due to the environment. This article collects some of these common cases and provides the recommended solutions.

We have had a couple of questions about whether Rapise can test Adobe AIR based applications running on mobile devices using platforms such as Android. This article provides some background and also describes the support Rapise has.

[We have depreciated support for testing Adobe Flex/Flash applications in Rapise 5.0 and later, so this article is provided for use by existing customers]

Sometimes when testing certain web applications instead of the browser DOM tree appearing you will see strange results such as "Node0" appearing. This is caused by the application using nested frames with potentially different security origins. This article describes some of the common issues and describes the solution.

When recording or playing back a test script on a new PC you may get an error message that Rapise cannot find the path to "AllLibraries.json".This article provides instructions on how to fix the issue.

Sometimes you have a web test where you need to test the contents of two browser tabs at the same time in Google Chrome. For example you may have an application which opens up a second browser tab and you want to test that changes in the second tab show up correctly in the first tab. This article describes how to perform this kind of testing.

If you receive the following error message when performing Mobile device testing with Rapise, this article provides the necessary solution:

Method not found:
'OpenQA.Selenium.RemoteCommandInfoRepository
OpenQA.Selenium.RemoteCommandInfoRepository.get_Instance()'.

Note: related to Appium DLL version  1.3.0.1 and  Selenium WebDriver v2.48.0.

One of the more challenging types of web application is that with uses of embedded SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) in additional to HTML DOM elements. This article describes how to use Rapise to write automated testing scripts for such applications.

When you try and connect to the 64-bit version of the Google Chrome web browser using Rapise 4.0 (or earlier) you may get the error 'Connection to Chrome Failed!'. This issue has been fixed in the Rapise 4.1 release, but for those customers using Rapise 4.0 or earlier, this article provides two solutions.

It is a common situation that desktop applications written using Microsoft Windows Presentation Framework (WPF) will have complex layouts including tabs, splitters and panels having custom grids and tables inside. This article provides help in dealing with such situations, including how to dynamically find items.

In the KB62 article - Accessing Files using Rapise we explain how to access the names, versions and locations of files on the Windows file system. One customer asked - can we verify any file details other than version. This article provides sample code for accessing other information.

Note: if you have Rapise 5.5+ then you may simply use File.Info action.

Sometimes when testing local/desktop applications you need to access the Windows registry to verify that keys exist or that keys have specific values. For example you may be testing that a DLL was successfully registered. This article provides information on the 'UsingRegistry' sample that comes with Rapise.

We had some customers that were looking to record some tests against Microsoft Word 2010. When testing against MS-Word 2010 there are actually two parts to the application:

• There is the application ribbon (the menus, navigation, etc.)
• There is the MS-Word text window where your content is actually displayed

This article provides some strategies for dealing with both areas.

If the website under test contains frames, that presents some challenges to test automation. This article gives tips for success and explains the current limitations.

This article is obsolete. Please use Selenium-based profiles for Web testing. Read about Rapise XPath extensions here.

When testing complex data-driven web applications using Rapise, it is helpful to understand the different ways that Rapise can automatically learn the objects. Rapise can learn an object using either XPATH or CSS. In the case of XPATH there are several strategies that Rapise can use to make the testing more robust. This article describes these strategies and provides some suggestions about which one is the best to use for different scenarios.

The v4.0 release of Rapise adds enhanced attribute filtering to the Web Spy as well as different options for creating XPath queries automatically. This article explains why you would want to use these features and how they can make the testing of complex data-driven web applications much easier.

One of the challenges using an automated testing tool is to organize things in a way that it is logical enough to find something quickly, structured enough to avoid duplication and simple enough to maintain and upgrade.

This statement is also true for Rapise objects. A common requirement is to deal with the same objects within a flow of different test cases. For instance, if an application has “Log In” functionality then many, many tests will require logging-in and logging-out. Each test will have this object in its own object tree. However this causes trouble if a change in the application affects the recognition of the Log In object. All of the test cases will need to be updated. In such situations it is much more convenient to have the “Log In” objects placed into their own file and re-used by other tests.

This article is obsolete. In Rapise 8.0 and above the recommended approach is to use Page Objects / Modules.

The most commonly used synchronization option to make Rapise wait until the application under test (AUT) is ready is the Global.DoSleep action. However having just a sleep may cause an unnecessary delay because we have to consider the maximum wait interval and it may be much less on average. Rapise includes some additional synchronization options for more fine grained control of the test case flow.

This articles describes how you can use the Navigator.CheckObjectExists(...) action to see if an element exists on a web page and how it differs from the Global.DoWaitFor / DoWaitForProperty actions that are described in another article.

The Tester.EndTest() function in Rapise is described as: Marks end of a currently executed test. Calculates test results and performs finalization of test execution. We have found that some of our customers have been confused as what the purpose of this function is.

Suppose we have a situation that a thick-client (desktop) application under test (AUT) is based on a technology that is too old or not completely supported by Rapise. Rapise has a number of libraries for different types of apps. Usually Rapise finds the correct libraries using its auto-detection, but sometimes an application is unusual and the auto-detection fails.

DEPRECATED
Method described in this article does not work any more because browser security has changed since 2015. Now it is not possible to directly access client side JavaScript model. We have a new article that explains how to automate TinyMCE

https://www.inflectra.com/Support/KnowledgeBase/KB541.aspx

When you have a rich text box in a web application, the process for recording a test and playing it back will be different to a standard HTML plain text box. When you are using the popular TinyMCE rich text box you have more options to automate it by using its special client-side JavaScript API.

Sometimes when using Rapise to test REST web services, you want to be able to dynamically change the base URL of the web service yet still use the same URL template and method information. This article describes a process for achieving this.

Sometimes you have a test that you want to run on Chrome, Firefox, and IE in the same script. Normally you write a browser-agnostic test and then have SpiraTest simply call Rapise with different browser names as a parameter and then you have the same test executed multiple times. However suppose you want to have a single test that by itself can run on all the necessary browsers. This article addresses this case.

How do you get the exact time that Rapise takes to load a page? Now, the reports summary shows the overall execution time but if you have pause times between steps then these times are added to the total time of that a page took to display. Customers have asked if Rapise has some kind of function that will allow them to see only the transaction time between pages without the pause times. Does Rapise have something like that? This article provides a solution to these cases.

Sometimes you want to dynamically change the XPATH or CSS used in a specific object from within the test script itself. This article explains the process for doing this.

By default, the reports displayed within Rapise report back each test activity and assert statement as a line in the report with all of the activities and events being displayed in a single flat list regardless of whether they happen inside the main Test() function or a sub-function. This articles explains how you can extend the reporting.

When you have a multi-select list in a web application, you may need to check which items are selected, or to check whether or not a particular item is selected. This article illustrates how to do that.

When you use a DoX command in Rapise to perform a specific command (e.g. DoDOMChildrenCount() to get a number of object's DOM children), in the report an extra step -- assert -- is created during test execution. Sometimes you want to be able to call a function 'quietly' without it affecting the report.

Sometimes when you record a test script using IE and then play it back, some of the clicks on hyperlinks will not playback correctly. Rapise will list them as Passed, but the click won't actually be performed.

If you try and connect to Firefox with Rapise immediately after Firefox has updated, you may see the following error message:

Microsoft JScript runtime error: 'Navigator.GetBrowserHWND()' is null or not an object

Sometimes when you are saving Rapise test scripts into some early versions of Spira v4.2.x.x (e.g. Spira v4.2.0.1 - v4.2.0.5) you can start getting these errors on the Test Case details page. You may also get the error for other reasons in earlier versions of Spira v4.x.

This article describes the process and provides an example for accessing the Spira v4.2 REST API to get a filtered list of test cases in a release.

It is often useful to have a common set of code libraries and objects that can be reused amongst multiple tests. With Rapise this can be done by creating a common test and then including it into the other actual tests. However due to the way REST web service tests are stored, there are some slight changes needed to handle REST services. This articles describes the process.

Note: if you have Rapise 8.0+ there is a simpler way, just create a module for REST service calls.

In Rapise 2.2, "DoClick" behavior was changed, so we don't do a click but rather just position the mouse over the control and do API-level "click" event. However we provided a way to enable backward compatibility.

This article is obsolete.

When testing Silverlight applications, you may find that Rapise fails to recognize the objects in the Silverlight app using the UIAutomation library. When using the Rapise Spy Tool, the  whole app is identified as a single window. The objects such as a dropdown, buttons etc. inside the silverlight app are not individually recognized.

With our Rapise cloud edition, you can take your automated software testing to the cloud. With  Rapise cloud edition you can start testing immediately, no hardware or test lab needed, just sign up for Amazon Web Services (AWS) and rent our Rapise cloud AMIs on-demand, with no minimum usage and no annoying monthly or annual fees, just pay for what you use.

By default Rapise records user actions with a line commented out for each action. This articles describes how you can disable this behavior if you just want the script lines recorded on their own.

By design Rapise tries to record user activity on the highest possible level. This makes recorded actions more readable and universal (often several lower-level user actions are combined)

Rapise uses a heuristics to distinguish meaningful activity from low level actions. In some cases this leads to a result that some user activity is not automatically recorded (for example, a mouse click before entering  text in a box). There is a broad range of available UI platforms and libraries. The variety of graphical widgets makes user interface robust and beautiful. Rapise tries to recognize as much objects as possible. However this range is growing and there are always widgets that are not being recorded.

Anti-virus software is very sensitive to test automation tools. This is normal, because test automation tools usually do API, keyboard and mouse hooking to be able to record and playback user actions.

Q: We need to call many common functions from a common library frequently.

A Flex application requires some instrumentation to be ready for testing. By default Flash player has security restrictions preventing Rapise from accessing the application contents. Please, check the this help topic to learn more about Adobe Flex testing.

This article is obsolete. Flex support was removed from Rapise.                

In most cases Auto is the best choice. Manual selection of libraries may be needed in more advanced scenarios and is intended for experienced users.                

Sometimes you need to test an application running on a VM or remote computer using Remote Desktop (RDP) rather than a physical terminal. This guide explains how to ensure that Rapise is able to correctly fire events on the application under test.

Sometimes you need to synchronize the test script so that it waits for a specific application event (change for status message or wait for some specific value). This guide explains how to ensure that Rapise waits for the appropriate condition.

Sometimes it is necessary to examine the state of an object. For example, determine if Toggle Button is pressed or not, Radio/Check Button is checked or not, etc. This guide describes a couple of different ways of achieving this.

Rapise has a choice of visual effects it can use when highlighting a control being learned during the recording process. This guide describes the different modes.

Sometimes Rapise will incorrectly recognize a GUI component. This guide outlines how you can manually change the object type captured during recording.

When playing back a test it is useful to be able to capture the screen as its current state so that the cause of any test failures can be more easily deduced.

The context menu control is not natively supported by Rapise, but one can use a simple workaround.

The behavior of list and combobox controls in GUI applications sometimes require additional attention. This guide explains the different types of combobox controls and best practices for testing them in Rapise.

Many web sites have dynamic site menus. This guide outlines the best practices for recording events associated with such dynamic site menus.

By design Rapise tries to record user activity on the highest possible level. This makes recorded actions more readable and universal. However that sometimes means that certain actions that a user performs won't be automatically picked up. This guide explains ways to handle situations when a specific user activity is not recorded.

This guide describes the different types of mouse events and how they are recorded in Rapise.

It is common for test scenarios to share similar pieces of functionality. A good example of such sharing is login logic. This guide outlines ways in which you can share such logic to avoid having repeated code in your tests.

This article is obsolete. To find out about re-using test parts, modules and page objects please refer to Rapise 8.0: how to use Page Objects/Modules.

When testing web applications you will often need to use XPath to query the browser DOM for elements based on the scenario under test. This guide explains how you can use XPath queries with Rapise to make your browser testing more flexible and adaptive to changes on the screen.

Many web sites use HTML tables to display lists of tabular data. When testing such applications you will often need to dynamically search for items in the table to verify that the application under test performed correctly. This guide outlines best practices for accessing data held in HTML tables.

This article is obsolete. For dealing with dynamic table data please refer to How to define and use a dynamic Web locator article.

Sometimes the application under test doesn't contain any learnable objects. In that case you may need to use the fallback of Analog Recording. This guide describes how you perform analog recording.

This guide describes what simulated objects are and when they should be used.

There are many different ways of passing test parameters to Rapise from an external system. This guide describes the different ways of passing parameter values to Rapise.

This guide describes how you manage groups of Rapise tests together in situations where you are not  using SpiraTest test sets.

Sometimes you need to call code libraries from your Rapise tests, for example when the built-in JavaScript scripting engine does not provide the necessary functionality. This guide explains how to call an external DLL from your Rapise test script.

There are several ways to find if something is already on the screen, this article explains some of the options.

When using Rapise for analog testing you need to use the key sequence CTRL+BREAK to start and stop the analog recorder. However some machines (particularly smaller laptops) do not have a BREAK or PAUSE (often the same function as BREAK) key. This article describes some solutions

Often you want to be able to query for the child elements on a web page that are dynamically created and therefore not good candidates for LEARNing individually. This article explains how you can use the dynamic XPATH methods of Rapise to accomplish this task.

When using Rapise, it is often useful to see how Rapise is identifying objects in the Application Under Test (AUT) and if necessary find out why Rapise is not able to locate a specific object. This article outlines how to increase the logging level in Rapise.

This article is obsolete. There is no ribbon in Rapise since version 6. If you have Rapise 6.0+ then follow these steps to change the verbose level.

Sometimes you have to automate the uploading of files using an HTML file upload control. This article explains how to record and playback such a script.

Rapise has built-in code completion logic that lets it suggest the available list of functions for a specific object. However since JavaScript is fundamentally an un-typed language, for the code completion to work, there are some tips and tricks that you can use.

When you are recording a test against a Web application you may have to deal with a popup JavaScript confirm or alert box. This article describes the process for dealing with them.

When you have a rich text box in a web application, the process for recording a test and playing it back will be different to a standard HTML plain text box. This is because the browser actually uses a separate IFRAME and HTML document for the editable rich text box. This article explains the process for recording/playing back such a test.

By default the Rapise Flex library supports a wide variety of Flex controls which will be capable of testing the majority of application. However sometimes there will be an unknown objects which will be learnt as a generic object with FlexObject flavor. The article describes support for such custom Flex controls.

This article is obsolete. Flex support was removed from Rapise since Flex is dead already for a long time.

One common requirement is to run a query in an application being tested and verify that the data on the screen matches the data in the application. This article explains the recommended process for doing this.

When writing a web test in Rapise you will often want to run the same test script in all three web browsers (IE, Firefox and Chrome). You will want to be able to choose the Test Script from within Rapise when debugging the test and then from a Test Set in SpiraTest when you move the test into production. This article explains the process.

This article is obsolete. For modern way of running Rapise tests in multiple browsers please refer to Rapise 8.0: how to run test cases on different browsers.

You can use the Global.DoSendKeys('...'); command in Rapise to send keypresses to the current application. Sometimes you will want to send special control keys to the application (e.g. Page Down, or CTRL + Key). This article explains the way to do this.

When you are testing a web application against different environments, it can be useful disable to default browser auto-updating policies so that you have a stable testing environment. This articles describes how to disable the auto-updating policies of Google Chrome and Firefox.

If you run one of our installation packages (.msi) and receive the following message:

A DLL required for this install to complete could not be run

Sometimes when you install Rapise on a computer that had a previous version of Rapise installed, when you try to record and/or playback a test you get the following error message:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Inflectra\Rapise\Engine\Player.js WScript.CreateObject: Could not connect object.

This article describes the steps to correct the error.

Sometimes when automating a test, you need to access the local Windows clipboard. This article describes how to access the Windows clipboard programmatically.

Sometimes you may have a button (or other control) that  can have a different appearance depending on the different focus statuses.
 
For example, the default status without focus is a grey image, whereas when the mouse hovering over it becomes blue. Then when the mouse left button is held down on the button (and not released), the image changes to a red image.
 
Finally, when the button is activated using the tab key to tab into the button and the mouse is somewhere else, it has a fourth color.

This article discusses solutions for how to test these kinds of situationю

Sometimes you need to execute JavaScript code at a browser side and get the result. You can do this with Navigator.ExecJS.

Sometimes you need to be able to test the state of a specific Win32 object in Rapise to see if it is enabled, disabled, is activated, etc. This sample illustrates how to get the numeric and textual value of the object's state.

Sometimes using Rapise you need to access files on the Windows filesystem, either for testing purposes, or to object test data stored in a flat CSV, TSV or text file. This sample illustrates how you can access the File System using Rapise and the Windows FileSystemObject (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa242706(v=vs.60).aspx).

Alternatively you may also use File global object.

Simulated objects are found by looking at the parameters of the object (x number of pixels from the top of the window, y number of pixels from the left of the window, etc).  One common question that has arisen is - during playback, does Rapise take into account screen resolution?  If the resolution on the computer you run it on is different from the one it records on the location of the object will change relative to the number of pixels.  So on the computer you record it on the top parameter might be 200 but on a different resolution it might be 180.  Would Rapise recognize that the resolution is different and adjust for that?

Sometimes if you have installed a program that associates itself with the .js file extension, you will see the following error when you try and record/play a Rapise test:

This article describes how to access child objects of a Learned Java AWT/Swing object when using the Rapise Java library. Sometimes when you Learn a top-level object, you want to be able to programmatically query the object to locate the child objects that are visible in the Java Spy.

When you have a WPF or Silverlight application that has a list box (or other control that supports templates such as a Tree) that has an item template that contains sub-controls, you may need to access the individual controls rather than just the entire list item. This article outlines the approach for doing this.

Sometimes you will have controls in a WPF or Silverlight application which use dynamic lists. Depending on certain settings, the widgets in the list will appear in different places. This means that a learned Rapise object which works fine if its in the original ListBox[0] location position is not found during playback when it's displayed in another position, e.g.  ListBox[1] or [2].

Unlike the XPath option with web testing, Rapise doesn't currently allow regular expressions (Regex) in locators stored inside the Objects.js file. This article describes a way around the problem.

This article is obsolete. Rapise supports regular expressions in UIAutomation locators since version 6. Read this article for more details.

If you use the Global.DoLaunch(...) command to launch a Windows console application, it will return a process ID. This article provides some sample code for executing a console application and checking to make sure that the process is not still running.

Sometimes you want to be able to open a browser window and execute JavaScript commands directly against the DOM objects rather than using the Rapise learned objects. This article explains the recommended way of doing this.

When executing Rapise scripts from SpiraTest using RapiseLauncher there is a 10-minute inactivity timeout. If your scripts have periods of inactivity that last longer than 10 minutes, you may need to extend the default timeout. This article describes the steps for doing this.

This article is obsolete.  Since Rapise 5 there is no default timeout anymore.

Sometimes when you are running Rapise tests you need to run direct database queries to prepare the data in the test application, or you need to make queries against the database to verify that some user interactions left the data in a specific state.

The sample script below illustrates how you can call database queries directly from the Rapise scripting editor:

This article describes how to playback a test in a different browser from the one it was recorded in.

Sometimes you have the situation where you can record/play a Java application using Rapise having correctly installed the Java bridge and set the JAVA_HOME environment variable correctly, but applets running inside a web browser do not work. This article provides some suggested solutions

Often you need to be able to check for the presence of an object and then depending on whether the object is visible perform one of two possible sets of operations. This article explains the recommended way of doing this in Rapise 1.5.

Often you want to be able to parameterize your Rapise tests to have a common set of test functions that can use different combinations of test data. You can use a MS-Excel spreadsheet to store the test data and use Rapise to read out the matching values. This articles provides a sample for doing this.

This article is obsolete. For modern ways of making data-driven tests please refer to Data-Driven Testing documentation topic.

This article describes the syntax for passing parameters from the Windows 32-bit command-line to a Rapise script. Note that you need to make sure that you're using the 32-bit command line on a 64-bit machine. I.e. follow the instructions in this KB article - https://www.inflectra.com/Support/KnowledgeBase/KB17.aspx

Sometimes you want a test script to be able to call another sub-test as part of its operation. You can do this using the Global.DoInvokeTest('path to test', [parameters]); function. This articles provides a more detailed example for doing this.

The high-level information can be found in the knowledge base at: KB127 - Passing Test Parameters.

When using Rapise to record test scripts against Windows, Java, Flex, or other thick client applications that have windows or objects whose names may change in between test runs, you will usually need to make changes to either the test script or the learned objects so that they can match correctly. This article outlines some suggested techniques for recording/playing back scripts against such applications.

When running a test you will often want to make sure there are no other browser windows open. This is commonly done either at the start or end of the test. This article describes how you do this.

This article is obsolete. With Selenium-based connectors (default option since Rapise 7.3) opened browser windows are longer an issue. One may continue to use regular browsers. Rapise will use isolated browser profiles to run tests. 

It is often useful to have a common set of code libraries and objects that can be reused amongst multiple tests. With Rapise this can be done by creating a common test and then including it into the other actual tests. This article describes the process.

This article is obsolete. To get information on how to use common  functions and objects across test cases please refer to Frameworks (recommended, requires Rapise 8.0+) or Legacy Frameworks (requires Rapise 7.0+) topics.

If you try and run a Rapise script from the command-line on a 64-bit machine you may get an error message. Learn how to fix it from the article.

If you have your browser zoom set to a value that is not 100% when recording or playing back scripts it will affect the playback reliability. Specifically Rapise may click/move at/to false locations in the test browser. You need to set your browser zoom to 100% before doing any playback/recording activities.

We are in the process of adding a new testing server that we would like to be able to run automation scripts against.

 I just wanted to see if there is a process documented for converting scripts and objects to point to a different web address?

If you try and record a test script in Rapise using just the 'Infragistics' library you will get the following error message: