Your first test, step by step
Record a short scenario, save it, run it and read its report, in about ten minutes.
A short scenario in any app you know well: open a menu, click an item, check that the right screen appears.A login, a search, or adding an item to a basket are all good first tests.
The guided way: a practice page
The first time GUI Test Runner-Recorder opens, its Getting Started Guide offers to make your first test with you, on a small practice web page that comes with the app.The page guides you itself: three numbered steps, type your name, pick an answer, click a button, each saying what kind of action your test records.Nothing of yours is needed, and the whole walk takes about ten minutes.You can start it again at any time from Help, Getting Started Guide.
- 1
Record the practice page
The guide lights up Record.The question that follows is already set on the practice page: click Record again, and the page opens in a browser window: do its three steps, then press Esc when it says so.The test is saved by itself as "My First Test", in your Documents, with the checks a recording gets.
- 2
Run it
The guide asks you to click Run Test.The test replays your clicks and typing on the same page, and passes.
- 3
Look around GUI Test Studio
Edit in GUI Test Studio opens the test on its timeline, and a guide of its own shows the recording, the steps, the checks, and the Assertions and Events palettes from which a block is dragged onto the timeline.Nothing has to be changed; its last card, Back to GUI Test Runner-Recorder, brings you back.
- 4
Run it again, on a changed page
Meanwhile the practice page has changed, the way an app changes between two versions: the welcome message forgets the name you typed, and the icon beside it is not the right one.The test has not changed.Run it, and the Confidence Report opens on the two checks that caught it, with its own guide to read it.
Before you start
Put your app on the screen in the state the test should start from: signed out, on its home page, with an empty basket.
Record
- 1
Click Record
Open GUI Test Runner-Recorder.Its home page offers the two ways to create a test side by side: under Record it yourself, click the red Record button.
- 1Record: starts a new recording
- 2Create Test From Prompt: the other way: describe the test to Claude
- 2
Choose what to test
Pick The entire screen for a first test.You can also pick one app, a web app, an area of the screen, or an Android phone.On a computer with several monitors, the app first asks which screen the test uses.
- 3
Wait for the countdown
The app steps out of the way and counts down three seconds.Use them to put your hand on the mouse.
- 4
Do your scenario
Click, type and scroll as a user would, at a normal pace.Wait for each screen to finish loading before you act on it.
A small toolbar stays on screen while you record.It never appears in the recording.Pause (F1) lets you set something up off the record, Stop (Esc) ends the recording, and Record Again throws the take away and starts over.
- 5
Press Esc to stop
The app comes back and asks what this test should verify.
Choose what it verifies and save
The question after every recording decides which checks the test gets by itself.The three cards are explained in Choose what a test verifies; for a first test, leave them as they are.
- 6
Click Save the Test, and give it a name
Each test gets a folder of its own, named after it.Its results will be kept in that folder too.
Saving takes a moment: this is when the checks are created, one for each element you clicked and for what appeared on screen.
Run it
- 7
Put the app back where the test starts
Same screen, same state as when you started recording.
- 8
Click Run Test
- 1Run Test: replays the test on the live screen
- 2Edit in GUI Test Studio: opens the test on its timeline
- 3Runs: every past run; double-click one to open its report
- 9
Hands off during the run
After a short countdown, the test moves the mouse and types by itself, and a thin blue banner at the top of the screen says a test is running.Do not touch the mouse or the keyboard until it finishes.Press F2 at any moment to stop it.
Read the report
When the run ends, the Confidence Report opens.The banner at the top gives the verdict, and the list below shows every step and every check in order.Click any check to see what was expected beside what was found.
Every run is kept: the Runs card of the test's page lists them, newest first, with the result, how long each took and how many checks passed.Double-click a run to open its report again.
Polish it in GUI Test Studio
The recorder wrote the test for you, and it works as it is.GUI Test Studio is where you make it yours: click Edit in GUI Test Studio on the test's page.
- 10
Name the checks and the important steps
Select a block and press F2: "Assert Sign in button", "Type user name".The Confidence Report and every bug report then speak your words instead of "Visual Assert #3".
- 11
Group the steps into Scenarios
Select the steps of one part and press Ctrl+G: "Sign in", "Search", "Check out".The report then says in which part a run stopped.
- 12
Adjust what needs adjusting
Add a check the recorder did not think of, give a slow screen a longer timeout, describe the test in Project Settings.Then Run Test again from the toolbar.
What to try next
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