I'm currently developing a wp7 app (don't want to tell too much ;), but I'm struggling a little with the user interaction.
The main question, I'm not sure about is: Should I offer an explicit save button in dialogs and use the phone back button as cancel, or should I save implicit the time the user taps the phone back button ...
The more I think about, the more I'm unsure about the best user experience.
I already read the user experience and interaction guide from Microsoft, but there isn't any advice in there about that issue ...
Thx alot for your suggestions.
On page 68 of the Windows Phone 7 UI Design and Interaction Guide it states:
Changes to Application Settings should be immediately implemented. This means that a "Done", "OK", or other confirming dialog is not neededd. In some cases, even though the change has happened immediately, the user may not have feedback that the change has occurred until an ongoing event is completed or a future event occurs. Examples would be joining a secure Wi-Fi network or changing the frequency of alarms.
Keeping Application Settings brief and clear should be a design goal. Complex, multi-page, multi-level Application Settings can frustrate or confuse users into thinking that they have entered another application entirely.
Although the same page also goes on to say:
Immediately implement user-selected Application Settings without a confirming dialog box and provide a feedback method to indicate that the change has occurred.
Avoid creating Application Settings that have more than 2 pages (screens). Settings that require more than a single screen should use overlying half screens to avoid losing context when
the SIP Keyboard is displayed.
If a task cannot be undone, always provide the user with an option to cancel. Text entry is an example. Actions that overwrite or delete data, or are irreversable must have a “Cancel” button.
When using additional screens with commit and cancel buttons, clicking those buttons should perform the associated action and return the user to the main settings screen.
To keep the heading of settings control panels consistent, the heading for the settings page should look as follows:
SETTINGS
<CPL Name/ Application Name>
Applications that fetch data over the network must have an option to disable data usage.
So, I think you only get in to questions over explicit vs. implicit if you have multiple pages for settings, and if you do it sounds like the explicit would be the way to go with sub-pages, but implicit for the initial page.
You should use explicit saving of settings.
However, for data entered it will depend on the application and the data being entered.
It's typcial to include a save button (or equivalent) otherwise there's (probably) no way for the user to cancel out of a partially entered form. This can also cause issues if there are validation issues which would prevent the saving of the partially entered data.
It depends on the app though. There is no universal rule for this.
Related
I created a login sequence and my selectors for the input email, password, click login and element exists are valid. But only when I have the Internet Explorer page open on the website I'm working with.
I did that sequence again, and I ran it, initially it worked but when I ran the hole project it broke again, I tried "repair" and "indicate", I tried to eliminate the title but nothing is working.
As far as I can see, you are using selector attribute:
"title=ACME System 1 - Dashboard"
Try using a wildcard: title='ACME System 1*', so it can work when you leave the dashboard.
This worked for me when I took those UiPath Academy courses.
In order to automate tasks within a browser with UiPath, the browser must be open. There is an activity called Open Browser that's included in the default activities for every project. You need to add this activity to the beginning of your sequence and pass in the appropriate parameters, (ie. URL, browser type) you can then pass the outputted browser variable to an attach browser sequence and execute your browser automation acivities within that.
Browser activity sceenshot
In addition, the selector that you have shared does not look like a stable selector. There may be other 'H1' elements on the screen that will cause your automation to fail. I would use the UI explorer to help you build a better, more stable selector.
Did you initially use IE to indicate screen elements and then changed the BrowserType property to use a different browser? Please share the sequence to suggest you a fix for your issue.
I would also suggest you to modify the selector to 'title='ACME System *'.
In order for selector to work the application needs to be open and the desired element needs to be available. So when you close the browser the selector disappears.
You may consider swithching to 'Modern Design Experience' and use 'Use Application/Browser' scope to make this more intuitive, and it will also automatically open the browser for you if it is closed.
I am facing a strange issue with my test automation scripts when executed through HP UFT 12.01
Our AUT is a web based application developed in actimize. During my test flow, lets say at 5th step i need to invoke a popup browser (child) from my main page. The new popup browser will not have any menus or back/fwd buttons.
3 out of 10 executions, during 5th step my main browser gets refreshed to invoke the popup and when popup rendered fully, contents and views got switched now. i.e., main browser has the contents which are supposed to display in popup window (with menu bar and back/fwd buttons) and pop-up window has main page contents (without menu bar, back/fwd buttons) & state when i performed click operation.
This is strange and i could not really conclude if its browser issue or UFT issue. I have also checked with functional team and they never faced, so this is happening only through UFT execution and speculating it could be UFT issue.. any help pls?
This sounds like it could be either:
1) an actual bug in your UAT
2) a problem with QTP object identification.
If it's #2, here's some things to check. First, make sure that QTP can correctly and reliably identify the two different "browsers". (i.e. while both are on the screen, use the "Highlight in Application" button found the Object Repository window while each of the objects is selected. I would try this for both a normal run and immediately after the browsers get switched (use a break point if necessary)
If there is a problem with QTP identifying the windows incorrectly, then you might want to add additional Description properties to the test object in the OR so that it can lock onto the right one more reliably. I usually use GUISpy to spy on something on the page, then in Object hierarchy I click on the top object (the browser), then click "Copy identification properties to the Clipboard" button, then paste the results into a notepad. Find one of those properties that uniquely identifies the browser objects from anything else. Sometimes I have to use the URL property (with some REGEX magic to isolate the specific page without making it TOO specific)
I'm very, very new to this tool and I'm just starting to experiment with it.
I want to test a simple web page. When I create a new Test, I'm asked to record it. I fire up IE, click the record button on the popup and type in an address (eg google.com). The problem is that the "Add Assertion" button is grayed out as soon as i press record.
So how can I record the act of browsing to www.google.com and asserting that, for example, there is a button with the label "Search"? Seems like I can either record or make assertions and this doesn't make sense to me, as I want to automate performing various actions and checking for specific results.
There isn't a way to record and do an assertion at the same time. With coded UI tests I have found it is best to keep my recorded actions relatively short and specific. Fill out a form and click to next page make assertions about the next page, record a new action for that page. Longer action recordings seem to break more often and are harder to update.
I have a weird probleme : I navigate to a view, I check one or more CheckBox and navigate back (I didn't override the navigateFrom method). Then I navigate to my view again, and the checkbox aren't checked.
Is this even normal behavior ? I this part of the tombstonning "feature" of Windows Phone 7 ? If yes, does that mean that whenever I navigate from a view, even if its within my app, I need to save state ? (I yes, that sucks...)
It sounds like what you're doing is:
Navigate to a page
Change something on the UI of that page(the checkbox)
Go back from that page
Return to that page again
If that's what you're doing, here's what's happening.
In point 3 the page is destroyed. If you didn't save something then the sytem won't have magically saved it for you.
In point 4 a brand new page is created. If you haven't written any code to set up the UI state then it will be the default.
Presumably the checked state of the checkbox is representative of something else in your app. You should therefore probably look at binding it's checked state to the underlying setting.
Because the system can't know what is a change you want persisting and what isn't, it leaves this up to you.
It's normally best to save data or setting changes as soon as they are made. Regardless of navigating within your application, your app could get tombstoned at any point and you'll probably want to preserve the app and it's data/state so that the user doesn't lose anything or get confused as a result of tombstoning.
In other words, can I count on a control ID as a reliable identifier?
From some reading I've done, it sounds like .NET controls can have control IDs that change with every run, is this so for Win32 apps as well, or are they something that's hardcoded in the source?
The window/control in question is actually an Internet Explorer dialog if that helps.
In general win32 dialog resource IDs do not change when you run the app. However, they are internal implementation details and as such they are subject to change whenever an update (patch, service pack, major release) to the application is made.
In general all of IE's dialogs use hard-coded control IDs. There may be some that are dynamic. If you give the specific control I might be able to give you a better answer.
The answer is "it depends on the circumstances, but in the majority of programs, these will not change across multiple executions." In general, a control ID or resource ID will be the same across every execution of the same program.
In most implementations, resources are stored in the resource section of the PE executable and are assigned a resource ID within that data structure. Usually, the developer specifies the resource in a .rc file.
The exceptional case is via APIs such as CreateDialogIndirect() which allow IDs specified through the API at runtime. Such dynamic creation is uncommon, however. Consistency of resource IDs and control IDs is the expected condition, so even in the case of the CreateXXXIndirect() API, users of the API would be ill-advised to chose a varying ID.
Microsoft has spent years trying to deal with applications which embed assumptions about internal windows implementation details. One of the biggest causes of compatibility problems for IE8 was caused by applications which made assumptions about the window order of IE controls. When the UI was changed in IE8, the controls moved and a number of browser plugins broke hideously.
In general you should never ever make assumptions about controls in an application that you didn't write - your code WILL break in the future (not might break, will break).
As a general rule, no they don't change between runs. Control IDs are usually specified with a dialog template, and that's a static resource compiled into an .exe or .dll. Controls can also be created using a regular call to CreateWindow or CreateWindowEx. In such cases, the ID is usually a constant, but it could be anything in principal (even a random value).
In any case, if you're planning to muck around with a dialog in another application, then you are asking for trouble. Control IDs can and do change between different versions of a program.
It depends on the control. Controls that are dynamically created could have a different ID every time they are created. Controls based on static dialog resources will have static IDs.
Even if a dialog is backed by a dialog resource template, controls can be added dynamically at runtime and those controls could have dynamically generated IDs.
Depending on your intent, it may be acceptable to store and reuse it for future lookups or traces; but in general it isn't safe.
If the window is based upon a dialog template, items declared in the template generally don't change. It is perfectly safe under typical circumstances to use these as identifiers.
Sometimes the window class name or a portion of it can be used as an identifier instead, depending on the window host.
If the dialog is one of the standard prompts from internet explorer, you may want to use text stored in adjacent controls or the dialog caption as additional verification info (if localized versions of IE are not an issue). If the dialog is a window that embeds an instance of MSHTML/IE; none of these options may be viable- but you can use OLE accessibility to get at the document shown and then browse the DOM from there.