Deciding when to use Web Add-in Extensibility

The OpenText Functional Testing Web Add-in provides a certain level of support for most Web controls, but ignores controls defined as DIV or SPAN elements. Before you extend support for a custom Web control, analyze it from an OpenText Functional Testing perspective to view the extent of this support and to decide which elements of support you need to modify.

When you analyze the custom Web control, use the Object Spy, Keyword View, Editor, and the Record option. Make sure you examine each of the elements described in Identifying the building blocks of Web Add-in Extensibility.

If you are not satisfied with the existing object identification or behavior, your Web control is a candidate for Web Add-in Extensibility, as illustrated in the following situations:

• The control might be recognized using a test object class that does not fit your needs. You can use Web Add-in Extensibility to help identify the custom control as belonging to a new test object class that you create.

• The test object class used for the control might be satisfactory, but you would like to customize the behavior of certain test object methods or identification properties. You can use Web Add-in Extensibility to create a new test object class that extends the one used by default, override the implementation of these properties and methods with your own custom implementation, and specify that the new test object class should be used for this control.

• You might find that the test object names generated for all objects of a certain control type are identical (except for a unique counter) or that the name used for the test object does not clearly indicate the control it represents. You can use Web Add-in Extensibility to create a new test object class that extends the one used by default, modify how test objects of your new class are named, and specify that the new test object class should be used for this control.

• Individual sub-controls within your custom control might be identified, but your main control might not be properly identified. For example, if your main custom control is a digital clock with edit boxes containing the hour and minute digits, you might want changes in the time to be recognized as SetTime operations on the clock control and not as Set operations on the edit boxes. You can use Web Add-in Extensibility to modify how events that occur on child controls are treated.

• During a record session, when you perform operations or trigger events on your control, no steps might be recorded, or the recorded steps might not be specific to the control's behavior. Alternatively, many steps might be recorded for an event that should be considered a single operation, or a step might be recorded when no step should be.

  You can configure the events you want to record for each type of existing Web object by modifying the Web event configuration. For more information, see the section on configuring Web event recording in the OpenText Functional Testing Help Center .

  If Web event configuration does not sufficiently enable you to customize recording, for example, if you want to modify the steps that are recorded when certain events occur, you can use Web Add-in Extensibility.

For an example illustrating how to use Web Add-in Extensibility to improve support of a custom control, see Analyzing the default support and extensibility options for a sample control.