Sara Ford - Analyzing a Test Case Failure (Maddog Part 3)

The Discussion

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  To create the automated tests, do you record and then playback mouse and keyboard events?  I was assuming you'd do it programmatically with COM or maybe send WM_COMMANDs.

  A while ago I had to automate the AOL dial-up window because it didn't use a standard RAS entry.  Instead I found the control IDs with Spy++ and used PostMessage and SendMessage to click the right buttons.  I guess you don't do it that way because your goal is to simulate an actual user?

• 

  Record and playback is definitely one way to automate tests.  Our primary method is to use a combination of MSAA and Win32 api calls, like sending messages to a control as you describe above.  We drive the UI (meaning we use the mouse and/or keyboard to click on menus, buttons, etc) as much as possible to simulate an actual user, and it does a really good job.
  
  Brian McMaster, one of our software testing architects (someone who designs our automation framework) wrote this whitepaper on Automating WinForms...
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnwinforms/html/autowforms.asp
  
  Hope this helps!
  -sara