About OpenText Functional Testing .NET Add-in Extensibility

The OpenText Functional Testing .NET Add-in provides support for a number of commonly used .NET Windows Forms controls. OpenText Functional Testing .NET Add-in Extensibility enables you to support third-party and custom .NET Windows Forms controls that are not supported out-of-the-box by the .NET Add-in.

When OpenText Functional Testing learns an object in an application, it recognizes the object as belonging to a specific test object class. This determines the identification properties and test object methods of the test object that represents the application's object in OpenText Functional Testing.

Without extensibility, .NET Windows Forms controls that are not supported out-of-the-box are represented in OpenText Functional Testing GUI tests by a generic SwfObject test object. This generic test object might be missing characteristics that are specific to the .NET Windows Forms control you are testing. Therefore, when you try to create test steps with this test object, the available test object methods might not be sufficient. In addition, when you record a test on controls that are not supported, the recorded steps reflect the low-level activities passed as Windows messages, rather than the meaningful behavior of the controls.

Using OpenText Functional Testing .NET Add-in Extensibility, you can teach OpenText Functional Testing to recognize custom .NET Windows Forms controls more specifically. When a custom control is mapped to an existing OpenText Functional Testing test object, you have the full functionality of an OpenText Functional Testing test object, including visibility when using the OpenText Functional Testing statement completion feature and the ability to create more meaningful steps in the test.

Note: If OpenText Functional Testing recognizes a .NET control out-of-the-box, and uses a .NET add-in test object other than SwfObject to represent it, then you cannot map this control to any other test object type.

The behavior of the existing test object methods might not be appropriate for the custom control. You can modify the behavior of existing test object methods, or extend OpenText Functional Testing test objects with new methods that represent the meaningful behaviors of the control.

You develop a Custom Server that extends the .NET Add-in interfaces that run methods on the controls in the application. The Custom Server can override existing methods or define new ones.