New features in UFT

1) New Add-Ins for Flex and Qt applications

UFT now supports:

• Flex
• QT

The add-ins give you the ability to test both Flex and QT GUI applications using UFT. For UFT to work with a Flex application you must compile it with a UFT Flex pre-compiled agent. Testing Qt applications does not require any other steps, other than loading the QT Add-in and testing your QT app just like you would any other UFT supported application.

2) Run step feature for API tests

For Service Test API test users, this feature is a simple change but an absolutely killerenhancement that’s going to save me a lot of time–the ability to run any step on the canvas areas using the new “Run step” command.

If you have an API test made up of 50 operations, you’ll no longer need to run the whole test from the top. Simply right click on any operation on the Canvas. For instance, selecting “Run step” will run only that operation. Sweet!

3) Insight – Image-Based Object Identification

Need to test an application that QTP was never able to recognize? Or do you need to test an application that runs remotely on a non-windows OS? In theory, using the new Insight feature in UFT will now allow you to successfully run tests against these types of challenging situations.

Basically, Insight works by UFT recognizing objects in an application based on what they look like. So, if you’re testing an application that UFT doesn’t support, it shouldn’t matter that none of the objects’ native properties are recognized, since UFT will instead use an image to help identify it.

All images are stored in the object repository.

(I’m not sure how reliable this approach is yet, since I haven’t had time to really try it out, but the concept sounds promising.)

4) Enhanced Debugging Features

Anyone that has been coding on QTP knows how frustrating and the limited the current QTP debugging capabilities are. On top of that, debugging is one of the most important parts of creating a script—which is why you’ll be happy to know that the debugger in UFT has been greatly enhanced.

The following panes have been added and enhanced:

• Call Stack – allows you to view info about the methods and functions that are currently in the call stack.
• Loaded Modules – for API tests, this pane allows you to view info on .dlls that are loaded and executed in API test runs.
• Threads – For API tests–allows you to view info about threads currently running as part of the run session.
• Local Variables Pane – allows you to view all the current values and types of variables in their current context.
• Console Pane – when debugging a script, this pane allows you to run lines of VBScript (for GUI tests) and C# code (for API tests) in your suspended run session.
• Watch – when debugging, this pane allows you to view the current values ad types of selected variables, properties, and VBScript of C# expressions in a test’s suspended run session.
• Debug pane – enables you to view the current values and types of variables, properties, and VBScript or C# in a test’s suspended run session.

And finally, the top Unified Functional Testing 11.5 feature enhancement you’re going to love is:

5) Unified IDE

In previous releases, HP had separate products for functional testing. QuickTest Professional (QTP) was used for testing GUI applications, and Service Test was for testing non-GUI technologies. Unified functional Testing (UFT) combines both products and features a frontend that merges the separate tools into one common user interface.

When creating a new test script in UFT, the user is now given a choice between creating either a GUI Test (formerly known as QTP) or API Test (formerly known as Service Test). This book focuses on the API testing piece of UFT.

UFT also allows the user (with a proper license for each piece) to integrate steps from GUI, API and LoadRunner into one test script. The ability to call and pass data from one test type to another enables the user to create true end-to-end testing solutions.

The new IDE also allows you to open multiple tests and libraries at the same time. This is destined to be a huge time saver, especially for QTP engineers that have created action-based frameworks.