WPF Test Automation
Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is a modern graphical system for building Windows client apps with visually engaging user experiences. With WPF, you can create both standalone and browser-hosted applications. The platform extends the core with a comprehensive set of development features that include controls, data binding, layout, 3-D graphics, animation, and media.
By offering scalability of graphic elements and support for complex animations, Microsoft’s WPF is a fresh and promising alternative to Adobe Flex and Windows Forms. Still in its early stages of maturity, however, the platform brings many questions and unknowns when it comes to securing the quality of the created WPF applications:
Platform complexity
Problem
Being extremely robust and complex, the WPF platform presents numerous obstacles when it comes to test automation. In WPF you can have unlimited number of elements which makes the object hierarchy quite complicated. Users find it hard to understand the parent/child relationship of the elements in the application.
Solution
Test Studio’s powerful recorder helps users locate the targeted element in the application hierarchy with a mouse-click. The recording surface offers visual cues which represent the object layers in the hierarchy. Depending on which selection box users choose, specific to the object verifications will be exposed.
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High level of tech skills needed
Problem
You would need to acquire considerable scripting knowledge in order to test WPF applications through any of the available testing tools on the market. This makes it hard for testers with no development skills. As developers would need to be involved in the testing process, the result would be slower development cycle and much higher production and maintenance costs.
Solution
With Test Studio it only takes point-and-clicks to build test automation for WPF applications. Such approach not only simplifies the testing process but also makes test maintenance much easier. Even more, recording WPF tests doesn’t differ from recording any other app – no need to learn new technologies to be able to automate it.
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Testing custom controls
Problem
When building next-generation line-of-business and kiosk applications developers quite often find it handy to customize the components they have out-of-the-box to complete their applications. The Visual Tree, however, fails to recognize the base control of the newly-created component and therefore files it as a new element type.
Solution
As soon as Test Studio’s recording surface detects a custom control in the app under test, it will identify the base class that the control has inherited and will show the quick tasks for that base control. You no longer have to worry about using custom controls to achieve stunning user experiences. What’s more, if you need to test an application built with Telerik WPF controls, Test Studio will instantly detect them and suggest specific verifications even for complex data and navigation components.
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Elaborate graphics and animations
Problem
The WPF platform provides an avenue for displaying complex graphics and custom themes, rich media elements, and 3D surfaces and interactive effects. This imposes quite a few challenges to testers who are trying to automate these animated objects.
Solution
Test Studio’s execution engine waits for an element to become visible and for the item to stop its animations. What’s more, automated software testing instantly detects if the element is in view, and if not, scrolls to make it visible. Only then, action is performed.
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Pop-ups automation
Problem
Automating pop-ups has always been a challenge for most automated software testing tools. In WPF applications it is even more complicated because the respective controls are not part of the main Visual Tree – each popup under test would have its own Visual Tree which would not be accessible from the main application tree.
Solution
Test Studio’s recording surface allows users to detect WPF pop-ups and connect to them. Users can highlight elements within these Pop-ups, and record verifications against them, as well as navigate through their Visual Trees in the DOM Explorer.
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