Experience with Test Automation FX
Want to add UI testing to my WinForms 3.5 project. Currently using MSTest for unit testing and MSBuild for building it.
One option I am considering is Test Automation FX .
The product seems a little new and not fully polished, but it seems to work. So, I'm curious if anyone else is using and has good or bad things to say about this.
It's a little cheaper ($ 450) than Test Complete ($ 2000), so I'm also trying to figure out what's missing or missing, if anything, from Test Automation FX.
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I recently went through the process of choosing a GUI testing solution and finally decided to go to TestAutomationFX. Here are the main reasons I made this choice:
- It generates real code (C # in my case), which is invaluable to me: for maintainability, archivability, flexibility, etc. It is much easier to write in C # (I can ask my developers for support) than in my own script language, which I will need to learn from scratch (or worse: infinite grids of non-maintanable dropboxes). It also allows me to create a good testing framework.
- It has seamless integration with NUnit (which my team uses for unit testing and integration). My data driven test comes from the same CSVs and the GUI test reports are simply added to the unit test reports for easy archiving and maintenance.
- It is significantly better at recognizing complex UI objects that my developers use (Telerik, Infragistic, home-made): 25% of my clicks are in x / y mode, versus 67% with TestComplete or Ranorex
- Their sales engineers gave me great support (at least during the evaluation period).
- It has no major bugs or complicated license setup (yes, I'm looking at you TestComplete guys, see my other post ), no runtime license issue, no VM licensing issue.
- (although it wasn't that important to me), it is four times cheaper than other commercial solutions.
On the other hand, the app has a middle flaw:
- The mapping system (i.e. mapping the properties of the AUT object to the Test-application objects) is very touchy: refactoring the code requires special attention. I overcome this by executing my VCS before every code refactoring. In any case, testComplete provides the ability to refactor your code.
OK, as you can see, I am quite etusiast with this solution. I have only been using it for a few days and may run into big problems later. But now it gives me exactly what I wanted, so let me be happy :)
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The company I work with uses SilkTest which works really well. In general, when using automated testing, you will run many regression tests. More importantly, when you have modified an existing project, then the test software will still be able to run those tests without any errors. (Or with the errors you expect.)
But there are many, many other test solutions on the market. Before, I even saw a test setup that required two computers and additional hardware. The hardware will connect to the monitor, mouse, and keyboard of the test system. The other end will be connected to a special expansion card on the test server. The hardware was such that the server could send keyboard commands to the test system and record whatever was on the screen. With the help of some additional OCR software, he was very well versed in any errors. Again, it had a six figure price, and to be honest, I would rather buy a Porsche at that price and would probably leave some cash to fetch me two beautiful dates while driving along the boulevards in Nice, France ..
There is a Wiki page with an overview of all kinds of test software. It doesn't compare the two, but you can find Test Automation FX , although it doesn't contain much information. It seems to be limited to testing the Windows GUI only. TestComplete provides additional information. Again comparing the Wiki it also supports a lot more. Much more, actually. It is enough to explain why it is expensive ...
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I am just starting to evaluate various GUI automation automation tools. I've looked at Test Automation FX, Ranorex and TestComplete. And the price for the software is in that order.
Here are some of my findings:
FX Automation Testing - C # coding fully integrated by VS. But it is very slow in finding components and consumes a lot of memory and does not fully support components in DevExpress.
Ranorex - coded in C #, there is a studio for testing, but can be fully integrated into VS. Improved object support. And you can find objects in your software using a regex expression for several reasons. Have some problems with DevExpress components, but run pretty fast.
TestComplete - uses its own script language. VBscript is the simplest (C # Script is just awkward notation). This is really good support for DevExpress components and runs the test very quickly. But very intense
Right now I don't know what I should be using. Ranorex alite is better than Test Automation FX, but both lack full support for DevExpress components. TestComplete is good, but it introduces a new development language and is very expensive. But the test scripts are small and the program has more logic in the very click-through search.
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I appreciated Test Automation Fx, although it recognizes all the controls of my application (we are using third party controls from infragistics i.e. netAdvantage controls for WPF) It is very slow to recognize controls, and even play times are quite slow compared to QTP or Ranorex. I would recommend Ranorex over Test Automation Fx.
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