How To : Understanding and Use the Search logic for Silverlight controls in Coded UI Test

Understanding the Search logic for Silverlight controls in Coded UI Test

 

One of the primary objectives during recording in Coded UI Test is to generate a robust search condition for a UI control to be uniquely identifiable during playback. In this post I’ll mention some of the search logic specific to the Silverlight UI Automation support within Coded UI Test introduced in the VS 2010 Feature Pack 2.

Search condition generation during Recording

 

For Silverlight control, Coded UI Test relies primarily on the Automation properties of the control. The sequence of looking for a search property in order descending of priority is

AutomationId,

Name,

LabeledBy,

HelpText,

AccessKey,

AcceleratorKey

Specific controls support additional searchable properties. For instance, Button supports  “DisplayText”, Image supports “Source”, DataGrid Cell supports “ColumnIndex” searchable property and likewise. The various search configurations mentioned here are applicable to Silverlight control search too (except for the SearchConfiguration.VisibleOnly configuration).

For a Silverlight object hosted in IE, the search hierarchy will consist of an IE search part and Silverlight search part –

 

Top Level Window à {IE Search Hierarchy} à Silverlight Root Visual Element à Parent of Target Element à Target Element.

 

Additional hierarchy can be generated in between the Parent and Silverlight Root Visual element based on the specific control requirement. For example, certain controls such as Datagrid, Tree, TreeItem, Tab, List Item are, at almost all times, included in the search hierarchy if they are found in the ancestor hierarchy of the target element. As an example, the extended search hierarchy of a DataGrid Cell will show up as something like

 

TopLevelWindow à {IE Search Hierarchy} à Root Visual Element (Silverlight) à DataGridTable (Silverlight) à DataGridRow(Silverlight) à DataGridCell (Silverlight)

 

 

Search path during Playback

 

The overall search logic remains identical to what is followed in other UI technologies. It is a breadth first search wherein the top level window is first searched and used as a container for searching the next control in the search condition hierarchy. This is done recursively until the leaf control in the search hierarchy is found.

 

As an example, for a simple button inside a Silverlight page, the search hierarchy will be typically of the format –

 

TopLevelWindow à Document (IE BODY Tag) à Pane (IE DIV Tag) à Custom (IE OBJECT Tag) à Root Visual Element (Silverlight) à Button (Silverlight).

 

For the top-down search till the IE Object Tag, the existing search features and settings in Coded UI Test are applicable. Once the search switches to the Silverlight technology (i.e. Root Visual element of the Silverlight page), there are few limitations to the search.

 

What is missing currently in Silverlight control search?

 

1. PlaybackSettings.ShouldSearchFailFast

• This setting is not honored currently. However, there is some level of customization that can be done using the PlaybackSettings.SearchTimeout and the Playback.PlaybackSettings.WaitForReadyTimeout settings to tweak the timeout at which the search should abort. The later may not seem obvious, and is hence explained in more detail in a section below.

 

2. PlaybackSettings.MatchExactHierarchy

Silverlight control search does not currently honor  MatchExactHierarchy = false. So, the search condition specified for the entire Silverlight hierarchy needs to be accurate for the search to succeed. In the above example, it is the Root Visual Element and the Button control.

 

3. Playback.PlaybackSettings.SmartMatchOptions

• Control level smart match is not currently supported i.e. Control

Note that Regex match is not yet supported in Coded UI Test. So the only option available is to specify the PropertyExpressionOperator.Contains condition operator in the search properties.

For example, if the button’s name is of format “Submit<SomeDynamicId>”, the search property can be defined as –

uISubmitButton.SearchProperties.Add(“Name”, “Submit”, PropertyExpressionOperator.Contains);

 

4. There is no concept of FilterProperties as supported in Web Technology in Coded UI Test.

 

 

How to handle search failures because of slow page loading?

 

If the XAP download takes a huge amount of time to load, the search during playback would fail since the Silverlight controls will not have been rendered in the visual tree. The internal search algorithm uses a wait and retry logic to search for a control while checking the visual tree rendering status at each wait interval (this time interval is upped exponentially on each iteration).

I will not be explaining the details here, but the important thing to note is that if there is no rendering happening within a polling interval, the search will return with failure status.

This polling interval is currently set to half of the Playback.PlaybackSettings.WaitForReadyTimeout which has a default value of 60 seconds (i.e. the default polling interval is 30 seconds). So to tackle slow page loading time, you can configure this Playback.PlaybackSettings.WaitForReadyTimeout to a desired value.

Note: Playback.PlaybackSettings.WaitForReadyTimeout does affect the normal search failure time in scenarios where there is some visual rendering happening in the Silverlight page. So you would need to strike an appropriate balance based on the type of application you are testing.

How To : Create, Edit and Maintaining a Coded UI Test for Silverlight Application

Using the Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Coded UI Test plugin for Silverlight, you can create Coded UI Tests or action recordings for Silverlight 5.0 applications.

CREATED BY

Prachi Bora (MSFT) (Microsoft)

Using Microsoft Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Feature Pack 2, you can create coded UI tests or action recordings for Silverlight 4 applications. Action recordings let you fast forward through steps in a manual test. For more information about action recordings or coded UI tests, see How to: Create an Action Recording or How to: Create a Coded UI Test.

In this walkthrough, you will learn the procedures that are required to test a Silverlight control in a Silverlight based application. The walkthrough takes you through the following procedures:

• Prepare for the Walkthrough   Verify that you have the Silverlight developer runtime installed and create a simple Silverlight application that uses a Silverlight grid control on which to perform coded UI tests. You will follow the steps in Walkthrough: Creating a RIA Services Solution.

• Add Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UITest.Extension.SilverlightUIAutomationHelper.dll to your Silverlight project.

• Create a Coded UI Test   Create a coded UI test on the Silverlight application.

• Run Coded UI Test   Verify that the coded UI test functions correctly on the Silverlight application.

Prerequisites

 

For this walkthrough you will need:

• Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, Visual Studio 2010 Premium or Test Professional 2010.

• Silverlight Developer 4 for Developers.

• Complete the procedures in Walkthrough: Creating a RIA Services Solution.

Prepare for the Walkthrough

To prepare the walkthrough

1. Verify that you have the Silverlight 4 developer runtime available at Silverlight Developer 4 for Developers.

2. Verify that you have completed the procedures in Walkthrough: Creating a RIA Services Solution.

   The result will be a simple Silverlight application that uses a Silverlight grid control. Later, you will use the grid control in this walkthrough and perform coded UI tests on it.

3.  

   For more information about supported and unsupported Silverlight controls, see How to: Set Up Your Silverlight Application for Testing.

   Note
   The Walkthrough: Creating a RIA Services Solution will install WCF RIA Services for Visual Studio 2010 and AdventureWorksLT sample database.

4. With the RIAServicesExample you created in Walkthrough: Creating a RIA Services Solution running, copy the address of the Web application to the clipboard or a notepad file. For example, the address might resemble this: http://localhost: <port number>/RIAServicesExampleTestPage.aspx.

Add the SilverlightUIAutomationHelper.dll to Your Silverlight 4 Project

 

To test your Silverlight applications, you must add Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UITest.Extension.SilverlightUIAutomationHelper.dll as a reference to your Silverlight 4 application so that the Silverlight controls can be identified. This helper assembly instruments your Silverlight application to enable the information about a control to be available to the Silverlight plugin API that you use in your coded UI test or is used for an action recording.This assembly cannot be redistributed. Therefore, you must add this reference conditionally when you want to build the application. By taking this approach the assembly is not redistributed when you deploy your software to a customer.

To add the SilverlightUIAutomationHelper.dll

1. For each Silverlight project in your solution that you want to test, you must add the SilverlightUIAutomationHelper.dll. In Solution Explorer, right-click the RIAServicesExample project, select Unload Project.

   The project is displayed in Solution Explorer as RIAServicesExample (unavailable).

2. Right-click the project again and then click Edit RIAServicesExample.csproj.

   The RIAServicesExample.csproj file is opened in the Code Editor. You will see <PropertyGroup> nodes followed by <ItemGroup> nodes. You must make the following two modifications:

   1. To set the production condition, add the following entry to the first <PropertyGroup> node:

      xmlLang

       

      <Production Condition="'$(Production)'==''">False</Production>
      

   2. To add the DLL when the build is not a production build, insert the following <Choose> node after the <PropertyGroup> nodes, but before the <ItemGroup> nodes:

      xmlLang

       

      <Choose>
         <When Condition=" '$(Production)'=='False' ">
               <ItemGroup>
                 <Reference Include="Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UITest.Extension.SilverlightUIAutomationHelper">
                 </Reference>
               </ItemGroup>
             </When>
       </Choose>
      

3. To save the file, click Save.

4. To reload these changes, right-click the server project and then click Reload Project

   Caution
   If you have multiple Silverlight projects that you want to test, you must follow these steps for each project.

   Important

   To remove the SilverlightUIAutomationHelper.dll so that it is not redistributed with your production code, set the production condition value to true in the first <PropertyGroup> node. In in this manner, the DLL is no longer added as a reference by the Choose node that you added to the project in the previous procedure. You can also set an environment variable named Production to the value True. Then you can use msbuild to build the Silverlight project and remove the SilverlightUIAutomationHelper.dll.

Create a Coded UI Test for RIAServicesExample Silverlight Application

 

To Create a Coded UI Test

1. In Solution Explorer, right-click the solution, click Add and then select New Project.

   The Add New Project dialog box appears.

2. In the Installed Templates pane, expand either Visual C# or Visual Basic, and then select Test.

3. In the middle pane, select the Test Project template.

4. Click OK.

   In Solution Explorer, the new test project named TestProject1 is added to your solution. Either the UnitTest1.cs or UnitTest1.vb file appears in the Code Editor. You can close the UnitTest1 file because it is not used in this walkthrough.

5. In Solution Explorer, right-click TestProject1, click Add and then select Coded UI test.

   The Generate Code for Coded UI Test dialog box appears.

6. Select the Record actions, edit UI map or add assertions option and then click OK.

   The UIMap – Coded UI Test Builder appears.

   For more information about the options in the dialog box, see How to: Create a Coded UI Test.

7. Click Start Recording on the UIMap – Coded UI Test Builder. In several seconds, the Coded UI Test Builder will be ready.

   

8. Launch Internet Explorer.

9. In Internet Explorer’s address bar, enter the address of the Web application that you copied in a previous procedure. For example:

   http://localhost: <port number>/RIAServicesExampleTestPage.aspx

10. Click one or two of the column headers to sort the data.

11. Close Internet Explorer.

12. On the UIMap – Coded UI Test Builder, click Generate Code.

13. In the Method Name type SimpleSilverlightAppTest and then click Add and Generate. In several seconds, the Coded UI test appears and is added to the Solution.

14. Close the UIMap – Coded UI Test Builder.

    The CodedUITest1.cs file appears in the Code Editor.

    Note
    You can assign a unique automation property based on the type of Silverlight control in your application. For more information, see Set a Unique Automation Property for Silverlight Controls for Testing.

Run the Coded UI Test on the RIAServicesExample Silverlight Application

 

To run the coded UI test

• On the Test menu, select Windows and then click Test View.In Test View, select CodedUITestMethod1 under the Test Name column and then click Run Selection in the toolbar.

  The coded UI test should successfully run using the Silverlight data grid control.

Tasks

How to: Set Up Your Silverlight Application for Testing

Reference

Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UITesting.SilverlightControls

Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UITest.Extension.Silverlight