Visual Studio Integration
TAFX supports full VS integration. The User interface map is edited graphically inside the studio as a designer. The UIMap can also be edited in code through the InitializeComponent method. When recording tests the code for the test will be automatically inserted into the code editor. The user can choose if he want to add new methods or append/replace existing methods.
Appropriate and easy-to-use Recording Control
TAFX has a recording mode which you can use to record your tests. During the recording the recorded actions are displayed in the recorder control window. The recording can be paused and resumed if you have to perform actions that you do not want to have in the recorded test.
When the recording is stopped code is generated for the recorded actions. This code can be adjusted to make the test better and more robust. The test code is plain .NET code in the language of your choice (C# or VB.NET).
To verify your application under test you can also add verification code during recording. Just point to the user interface element you want to verify and select the property that is of interest. Code will be inserted into the test that will verify that the element has the same value during playback.
User Interface Map
To be able to find the user interface elements in your test, TAFX uses something called the user interface map (UIMap). The UIMap will map a complex path of finding the user interface element into a simple name (e.g. ButtonPlus in the calculator). In the UIMap designer you can add user interface elements by dragging a crosshair to the object. Elements can also be added by showing a list of children of already added elements.
The UIMap makes the test more robust and tolerant against user interface changes. The test only accesses the object through the short alias (the component name). So if the UI changes all that has to be done is to remap the object in the UIMap and all references to that element will work fine again.
Although the names of the UIMap objects are generated to give you a good idea of which UI element it maps to, it can sometimes be hard to remember. It can then be a great help that all UIMap object saves an image of the object that it represents. This image is shown in the UIMap designer when an UI object is selected.
Framework Approach
TAFX is a framework and behind this approach lies the conviction that to be able to meet the needs of current and future development environments we need to support flexibility also in the test tool implementation.
Without the framework approach this is difficult to meet. This is also one of the building blocks constituting TAFX as a collaboration and communication facilitator since the framework approach also enables certain key customizations and adoptions to the test projects within each development team.
