Automating MyAppInFlex.swf – Useful FlexPilot commands

I continue automating my Flex application with FlexPilot. One clear advantage I found when using FlexPilot is that I was able to access more of the UI elements of a complex Flex interface. The other tools I tried weren’t picking all those elements, but I must admit that I didn’t investigate further.

An interesting feature is FlexPilot’s chain syntax, that allows to access flex UI elements by different properties, like id, label or text. Another feature I liked is easier integration to work with selenium RC and selenium IDE.

Below some usage examples to create automated tests for MyAppInFlex.swf, and also serve as a quick reference on how to interact/access the flex UI.

Click on a Button

The easiest way to access an element is using the element’s id, for example click on a button:

selenium.flexClick("id=MyAppInFlex", "chain=id:okButton");

If the button you are trying to access doesn't have an id, you are able to find it using the label property:

selenium.flexClick("id=MyAppInFlex", "chain="id:buttonBar/label:Search");

Access an element on a Grid

Click an element that has an specific value on a Grid

selenium.flexClick("id=MyAppInFlex", "chain="id:userGrid/name:AdvancedListBaseContentHolder*/name:AdvancedListBaseContentHolder*/text:Maria Marcano");

Check the value on a TextInput

Check a textbox has a specific value

selenium.flexAssertProperty("id=MyAppInFlex", "chain="id:emailTextBox, validator=text|emailvalue@domain.com", );

To improve the application testability, add id’s to the objects you want to access. This also applies for web application in general (accessing elements by id’s is faster than processing xpath expressions).

Some limitations

Elements on a grid can’t be accessed by position, for example click on the first/second element on a grid.

I’ve been experiencing some issues with some application builds that prevent the use of the flex explorer and recorder (reported the bug, hopefully it gets fixed soon). You can still run the tests, just not using those tools to capture the elements.

CruiseControl.Net and MSTest

I wanted to put together some notes about CruiseControl.Net and MSTest to have it as reference:

First, to be able to generate reports the following element is required on ccnet.config file.

<xmllogger />     

this element is used to create the log files read by the CruiseControl.NET web page, if it isn't defined the web page will throw the following error:

Exception Message
Request processing has failed on the remote server: Unable to find Log Publisher for project so can't find log file.

To view the MSTest report, we need to add the result file in ccnet.config to merge the content in the build report, for example :

..................
<exec>
  <executable>C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\MSTest.exe</executable>        
  <baseDirectory>.\</baseDirectory>
  <buildArgs> /testcontainer:SeleniumSearch\bin\Debug\SeleniumSearch.dll /resultsfile:Results\results1.trx</buildArgs>
</exec>     
tasks>
<publishers>
<merge>
  <files>
    <file>.\Results\results1.trx</file>
  </files>
</merge> 
<xmllogger />
</publishers>
..................

Include the MSTest plugin to generate the report on the web page, for example dashboard.config file

..................
<buildPlugins>
  <buildReportBuildPlugin>
    <xslFileNames>
      <xslFile>xsl\header.xsl</xslFile>
      <xslFile>xsl\modifications.xsl</xslFile>
      <xslFile>xsl\MsTestSummary2008.xsl</xslFile>          
    </xslFileNames>
  </buildReportBuildPlugin>
  <buildLogBuildPlugin />
  <xslReportBuildPlugin description="MSTest2008 Report" actionName="MSTESTReport" xslFileName="xsl\MsTestReport2008.xsl"/>             
</buildPlugins>
..................

And include the xls file for MSTest report on ccservice.exe.config/ccnet.exe.config

..................
<!-- Specifies the stylesheets that are used to transform the build results when using the EmailPublisher -->
<xslFiles>
    <file name="xsl\header.xsl"/>
    <file name="xsl\compile.xsl"/>
    <file name="xsl\unittests.xsl"/>
    <file name="xsl\MsTestSummary2008.xsl"/>        
    <file name="xsl\fit.xsl"/>
    <file name="xsl\modifications.xsl"/>
    <file name="xsl\fxcop-summary_1_36.xsl"/>
</xslFiles>
..................

The xls used on the above example is the one included in ccnet installation. I tested the report generation running tests on VS 2010 and VS 2008 and both reports are generated correctly. The only thing that caused issues was having MSTest on the path windows environment variables on a computer that has both VS 2010 an VS 2008

Also, if MSTest needs to connect to external resources, like accessing remote files or connecting to SQL Server, make sure the account that runs CruiseControl.Net Server windows service (by default is Local System Account) has access to those resources.

CruiseControl.Net driving Selenium Tests

This is how you can quickly get CruiseControl.Net running and driving your selenium test – in 6 steps:

1. Donwload & Install CruiseControl.Net
2. Start “CruiseControl.NET Server“ Windows Service
3. Download SeleniumTest sample project and extract it on a folder C:\Projects\.
4. Edit CruiseControl.NET configuration file (C:\Program Files (x86)\CruiseControl.NET\server\ccnet.config) and replace it with the information in C:\Projects\SeleniumTest\CruiseControl.Net\ccnet.config. Modify it with proper locations of MSBuild.exe, MsBuild.dll and MSTest.exe 
5. Start selenium server by running C:\Projects\SeleniumTest\SeleniumServerPort4441.bat.
6. Open http://localhost/ccnet and you will se the project SeleniumSearchTest1 click on Force. It should build the project and start the tests.

The tests will run using chrome, you can change this parameter in C:\Projects\SeleniumTest\SeleniumSearch\SeleniumSearchTest.cs and use "*iehta" for Internet Explorer or  "*firefoxproxy" for Firefox.

// "*iehta" IE -  "*firefoxproxy" FF - *googlechrome
selenium = new DefaultSelenium("localhost", 4441, "*googlechrome", "http://seleniumhq.org/"); 

This is how the ccnet.config file looks

<cruisecontrol xmlns:cb="urn:ccnet.config.builder">
  <project>
    <name>SeleniumSearchTest1</name>
    <triggers>
      <scheduleTrigger time="23:30" buildCondition="ForceBuild">
        <weekDays>
            <weekDay>Monday</weekDay>
            <weekDay>Tuesday</weekDay>
            <weekDay>Wednesday</weekDay>
            <weekDay>Thursday</weekDay>
            <weekDay>Friday</weekDay>
        </weekDays>
      </scheduleTrigger>
    </triggers>
    <workingDirectory>C:\Projects\SeleniumTest</workingDirectory>
    <tasks>
      <msbuild>
        <executable>C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\MSBuild.exe</executable>
        <workingDirectory>C:\Projects\SeleniumTest</workingDirectory>
        <projectFile>SeleniumTest.sln</projectFile>
        <buildArgs>/noconsolelogger /p:Configuration=Debug /v:diag</buildArgs>
        <targets>Build</targets>
        <timeout>900</timeout>
        <logger>C:\Program Files (x86)\CruiseControl.NET\server\ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.MsBuild.dll</logger>
      </msbuild>
      <exec>
        <executable>DelResults.bat</executable>
        <baseDirectory>.\</baseDirectory>
      </exec>     
      <exec>
        <executable>C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\MSTest.exe</executable>        
        <baseDirectory>.\</baseDirectory>
        <buildArgs> /testcontainer:SeleniumSearch\bin\Debug\SeleniumSearch.dll /resultsfile:Results\results1.xml</buildArgs>
      </exec>     
    </tasks>
    <publishers>
      <merge>
        <files>
          <file>.\Results\results1.xml</file>
        </files>
      </merge>
      <xmllogger />
    </publishers>
  </project>
</cruisecontrol>

This example applies for VS 2008 Professional, ccnet 1.5.7256.1 and Selenium RC 1.0.3

Links:

http://confluence.public.thoughtworks.org/display/CCNET/Welcome+to+CruiseControl.NET

http://github.com/downloads/mariangemarcano/seleniumtest/SeleniumTest-Code.zip