Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 – Coded UI Test – Overview

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Coded UI tests are innovative capability of Visual Studio 2010. Coded UI tests offer a way to create entirely automated tests which work at user interface level to certify the functionality and behavior of an application. Coded UI Test Framework features of Visual Studio 2010 permit testers to quickly and effortlessly create coded UI tests by recording the actions performed or straight from existing action recordings. Action recordings contain the steps taken during manual testing of an application.

Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate or Visual Studio 2010 Premium can be used to craft Coded UI tests. These tests provide functional testing of the user periphery and validation of user interface controls. Automated UI tests enable testing exactness of the user interface functioning after code changes. Coded UI tests are more rapid to run than manual tests. The coded UI test performs actions on the user interface controls for an application and verifies that the correct controls are displayed with the correct values.

When a coded UI test is created, internally a UIMap object is generated that is definite to the test and represents the windows, controls, parameters, and assertions that are in the UI or that are created through the recording. Once the UIMap object is on hand, then actions can be performed on these UI stuff to automate the user interface. A coded UI test class is recognized by a CodedUITestAttribute applied to the class. Each coded UI test is a test method in a coded UI test class. Multiple test methods can be added to a coded UI test class.

The test method can also add confirmation code for a UI test control to get the value of any of its available property. Test methods use an Assert statement to compare the actual value and expected values. The result of this evaluation determines the outcome of the test. Every time that a coded UI test is run, test results can be analyzed and if the test fails, details of which assertion failed can be seen or stored.

Coded UI Test is a test type which inherits from Unit Test. It can be used anywhere a unit test is used (of course with a small number of catches). Its code is generated in either C# or VB .NET languages. Coded UI Test Framework provides loaded APIs for Web, Win Forms and WPF controls for UI testing. The framework features intent aware recording and resilient playback features also used for fast forwarding at some stage in manual testing and to create actionable bug. It supports both local as well as remote runs. Coded UI has very rich extensibility features to customize recording as well as to provide support for custom controls.

When a Coded UI Test is executed, Playback engine performs all the interactions of the tests. Playback engine has smart match algorithm for searching the controls which applies heuristics. Playback engine supports UI Synchronization (not for all though) which ensures that the control that was supposed to have expected an action has actually received it, and redo in case of failure. Coded UI Test Framework provides many rich features such as smart algorithms to wait for a control to be ready, ensure visibility or existence of a control.