Coded UI Automation Support

[Chris Andrews]

Hello,

I do understand what controls are supported and which ones are not.  We are at a point where we need to automate the testing of our application and unfortunately the controls we use most are the ones unsupported (ribbon, docking, tab).

I've read forum posts and got bits and pieces of when they will be supported.  My question is does Telerik have a roadmap as to when ALL of the controls will be fully supported?  Seems the WinForms support was added recently.  Although it may be a painstaking process for us developers, we may have to look at oter suites that do support automation.

Thanks,
Chris

[Tina Stancheva]

Hello Chris Andrews,

I completely understand your concerns. I can assure you that we are constantly extending the support for coded tests. Currently the controls you listed support coded UI tests to the following extent:

The RadTabControl has extensive UI Automation support which was recently improved and with the latest internal builds you should be able to prepare your tests out-of-the-box. The RadRibbonBar control also supports UI Automation scenarios, however, if you experience any issues with it or you have any feedback on it, please share them with us and we will do our best to fix them and provide you with the automation support you expect from the control.

The RadDockig control unfortunately doesn't support automation testing but we are working on that. However, I cannot bind to a date when an automation support will be available. Still, you can take advantage of our WebUI studio which now supports WPF as well as Silverlight.

Regards,
Tina Stancheva
the Telerik team

[Garrry]

Hi Tina

My name is Garry Smith and I am the General Manager of Product Development at Axceler. My organization has made a large committment to Telerik controls for its commercial migration product.

To date we have been very impressed with the support and responsiveness of your organization.  We are also experiencing disappointing problems with being able to access various Telerik controls using Microsoft's out of the box coded UI feature. We have logged a support incident for which we have not received a reply yet.

There is one concern I would like to raise immediatly. In quite a few forum replies I have seen Telerik's response be that we should use its own automation tool instead of the coded UI.

This is not the type of support or reaction I have come to expect from Telerik. Your reputation for support and responsiveness is one of the main things I buy from you.

Please understand that when a customer is at the automated testing stage they are heavily vested in a project and a market. The benefits of automation are so vast at this stage that the decision to remove a vendor that is getting in the way of those benefits is an easy one.

If this is the type of response we continue to see we will make a choice to move away from the Telerik controls.

Please dont make me do that.

Garry Smith

Axceler

[Tina Stancheva]

Hello Garrry,

First of all I want to reassure you that we are taking this matter very seriously. We understand your concerns and we will do our best to improve our coded UI support.

I also escalated this issue and it will be further discussed next week among our teams. Then I will be able to provide you with a plan of how we will proceed with the matter and engage with dates and timeframe. I will keep you posted.

Please accept our apology for the caused inconvenience.

Greetings,
Tina Stancheva
the Telerik team

[Garrry]

Tina

Thanks for the prompt response. Our team is happy to get online and show you these problems  or provide sample projects or video of these issues.

Please let me know how we can help Telerik get this done quicker.

[Tina Stancheva]

Hello Garrry,

We highly appreciate your feedback and readiness to help. I will update you on the progress of the issue next week as soon as we have a plan on how to proceed.

Best wishes,
Tina Stancheva
the Telerik team

[Tina Stancheva]

Hello Garry,

I just wanted to follow up on this issue.

After further discussions and after prioritizing all tasks in our to-do list, we decided to work on the coded UI tests support during the Q3 2011 release. We are planning to implement automation peers for all RadControls that can be used to detect the controls so that different steps can be recorded in tests. After the release we will continue further improving the coded UI tests support.

Kind regards,
Tina Stancheva
the Telerik team

[Baiju]

Tina

I would like to get an update about the UI automation support of telerik controls. My current version is 2011.1.315.35 and most of the controls are not visible through inspect object or spy++

Thanks

[Tina Stancheva]

Hi Baiju,

We are currently working on improving the RadControls Automation support.  More information about the current extent of the implemented AutomationSupport for RadControls for WPF you can find here.

During this and the next release cycle we will be actively working on extending this support until all RadControls for WPF fully support automation.

All the best,
Tina Stancheva
the Telerik team