Manual

The acronym AJAX for "Asynchronous JavaScript and XML" is generally associated with modern web applications that provide a more interactive look and feel than classical <FORM> based applications, almost comparable to desktop applications. Behind this common acronym there is a whole zoo of toolkits that drive those applications, each with different key aspects and unique widget sets. Such toolkits pose a problem for QF-Test and in fact any automated testing tool for several reasons:

• The actual component hierarchy is created automatically from abstract widgets like Buttons or Lists. Often each widget is implemented as a number of <DIV> nodes. This leads to very deeply nested hierarchies with very little structure.
• IDs are either not assigned at all or automatically created and thus worse than useless.
• The asynchronous communication with the web server and dynamic creation of DOM nodes may cause timing-related problems.

There is no panacea to address these problems in a generic way. In most cases QF-Test can interact with AJAX applications out-of-the-box, but component recognition and performance are not ideal. Optimal testability can only be achieved with special case handling that exactly fits a given toolkit and takes advantage of its peculiarities.

VideoThe video at https://www.qfs.de/en/yt/web-test-automation-40.html gives you a good idea of how QF-Test handles a deeply nested DOM structure.

For the following list of toolkits QF-Test provides resolvers for optimized handling:

QF-Test is even able to automatically detect whether one of those toolkits is used in your web application and to install the respective resolver as described below.

An AJAX resolver is a set of resolvers and other methods implemented specifically for a given AJAX toolkit. Most notably QF-Test tries to assign individual classes matching the high-level widgets to DOM nodes and remove intermediate nodes that are just an implementation detail. 'Name', 'Feature' and 'Extra feature' attributes are determined in a way suitable for the toolkit and events are simulated on the correct DOM node in a way that most closely matches user interaction. These measures drastically reduce the component hierarchy and increase the reliability and performance of component recognition and replay. Timing and synchronization are also addressed.

As a necessary consequence the components and events recorded for a given web application vary drastically with and without an active AJAX resolver and are not compatible with each other. Thus the decision whether or not to use an AJAX resolver should be made as early as possible, otherwise tests will either need to be reimplemented after activating the resolver or tests with and without resolver must be cleanly separated. If a resolver is available for your application you should practically always use it. The only exception is if the existing test-base is already too large, mostly complete and stable.

Implementing AJAX resolvers is an ongoing process. As changes to a resolver can have consequences in terms of how components are recorded and recognized we need to make sure that you can update your QF-Test version without losing backwards compatibility with existing tests. To that end, AJAX resolvers have their own three-digit versioning scheme, starting with version 1.0.0, with the following meaning:

• A change in the minor version, e.g. 1.0.1, means that compatibility is not affected.
• Medium version changes, e.g. 1.1.0, imply that tests recorded with a lower medium version should still replay, but recording additional sequences may record components in a different way. This is not critical, but you may want to avoid it in case the benefits of the newer version don't outweigh it.
• A major version change, e.g. 2.0.0, can be incompatible even for replay so that manual updates or new recording of the affected components may be required.

AJAX resolvers are activated via the procedure qfs.web.ajax.installCustomWebResolver in the standard library qfs.qft where you have to provide the version to use. You can choose to specify only the major version, in which case QF-Test uses the latest medium.minor version available for this major version. This is normally the best option and used in the SUT startup sequences created with QF-Test's Quickstart Wizard (see chapter 3). Alternatively you can specify major.medium version or even major.medium.minor to use an exact version and thus run your tests with the resolver version with which they were created.

Unfortunately the number of available AJAX toolkits keeps growing rapidly and popularity changes frequently so we have to weigh carefully which toolkit to support and to which degree. Cooperation with QF-Test users also plays a major role. Resolver development may also be frozen - except for critical bug fixes - if a toolkit loses relevance.

This section lists the supported AJAX toolkits and versions with the available resolver versions. Newer toolkit versions don't necessarily require an update of the resolver. If your application uses a newer version of the toolkit than the supported versions listed below, please use the latest AJAX resolver available for this toolkit and let us know about your results.

4.1+ In QF-Test version 4.1 we have re-worked the integration of most toolkits and adapted it to the concept of generic classes. Therefore, you should install those resolvers with the procedure qfs.web.ajax.installCustomWebResolver. In case you need to work with older versions of those resolvers you can still use them. You can find a list of such older resolvers at subsection 45.3.4.

The resolver was developed against Angular version 4.

Its shortname for calling qfs.web.ajax.installCustomWebResolver is angular.

The resolver was initially created for Ext JS version 2 but does support Ext JS version 6 in the meantime.

Its shortname for calling qfs.web.ajax.installCustomWebResolver is extjs.

The Google Widget Toolkit has been supported starting with GWT version 1.5.

Its shortname for calling qfs.web.ajax.installCustomWebResolver or qfs.web.ajax.installToolkitResolver is gwt.

The resolver was developed against ICEfaces version 3.3.

Its shortname for calling qfs.web.ajax.installCustomWebResolver is icefaces.

The resolver was developed against jQuery UI version 1.10.3.

Its shortname for calling qfs.web.ajax.installCustomWebResolver is jqueryui.

The resolver was developed against jQuery EasyUI version 1.4.1.

Its shortname for calling qfs.web.ajax.installCustomWebResolver is jeasyui.

The resolver was developed for version Q1 2016.

Its shortname for calling qfs.web.ajax.installCustomWebResolver is kendoui.

The resolver was developed against PrimeFaces version 3.5 but does support PrimeFaces version 5 in the meantime.

Its shortname for calling qfs.web.ajax.installCustomWebResolver is primefaces.

The resolver was developed against qooxdoo version 5.0.2.

Its shortname for calling qfs.web.ajax.installCustomWebResolver is qooxdoo.

The resolver was developed against RAP version 1. Support for RAP version 2 and higher is complete.

Its shortname for calling qfs.web.ajax.installCustomWebResolver is rap.

The resolver was developed against RichFaces versions 3, 4 and 5.

Its shortname for calling qfs.web.ajax.installCustomWebResolver is richfaces.

The resolver was developed against Smart GWT version 6.1.

Its shortname for calling qfs.web.ajax.installCustomWebResolver is smartgwt.

Vaadin is another toolkit that is based on GWT but comes with additional features and its own widget set.

Its shortname for calling qfs.web.ajax.installCustomWebResolver is vaadin.

The resolver was developed for versions 6.5 and 7.

Its shortname for calling qfs.web.ajax.installCustomWebResolver is zk.

Any AJAX toolkit has its custom way of setting unique IDs. Please find details about the supported ones in the following chapter:

The simplest solution is to set the 'ID' attribute <div id="myId"/> for any required component.

You can set IDs like
var container = Ext.create('Ext.container.Container', {
id: 'MyContainerId',
... });.

As alternative you can also call container.getEl().set({ 'qfs-id': 'myId' });. In this case you will need to implement a NameResolver for reading 'qfs-id' as name for QF-Test.

The simplest way is calling the method widget.getElement().setId("myId"); for the required widgets.

As an alternative you can also call widget.ensureDebugId("myId"). But if you want to use that method you need to modify your xxx.gwt.xml file to enable debug IDs. Add <inherits name="com.google.gwt.user.Debug"/> to the file.

It's also possible to set a custom identifier which can then be used via a NameResolver.For example call setAttribute("qfs-id", "myId") to set an 'qfs-id' attribute.

The simplest solution is to set the 'ID' attribute <p:inputText id="myId"/> for any required component in the xhtml definition.

The simplest solution is to set the 'ID' attribute <p:inputText id="myId"/> for any required component. Additionally, you can give an existing element an id with: $(element).attr("id","myId");

The simplest solution is to set the 'ID' attribute <p:inputText id="myId"/> for any required component.

You need to set the 'ID' attribute in your source code or graphical editor.

The simplest solution is to set the 'ID' attribute <p:inputText id="myId"/> for any required component in the xhtml definition.

There is no default mechanism. You can either apply a custom attribute to the generated DOM nodes or add a custom attribute to the setData method of the widget. You can evaluate those attributes in a resolver.

Starting with RAP version 2.2 a name set via widget.setData("name", "myId") is retrieved automatically by QF-Test, just as for SWT. This field can only be used if it is registered with WidgetUtil.registerDataKeys("name"); before.

For RAP versions older than 3.0.0 the following technique is also available. It is discouraged because it deviates from the SWT standard and requires additional settings for the webserver:

Call the method widget.setData(WidgetUtil.CUSTOM_WIDGET_ID, "myId"); for the required widgets.

After applying IDs to components you need to modify your webserver environment and specify the following parameter -Dorg.eclipse.rap.rwt.enableUITests=true before launching the webserver.

Note: The VM argument was renamed in RAP 2.0. For RAP versions older than 2.0 its name is -Dorg.eclipse.rap.rwt.enableUITests=true.

You need to set the 'ID' attribute in your source code or graphical editor.

The simplest solution is to call widget.setID("id") for any required component.

The simplest solution is to call widget.setId("id") (widget.setDebugId("id") for Vaadin version < 7) for any required component.

You can also set a custom stylesheet class, which you could read with a NameResolver. Therefore call widget.setStyleName("qfs-id=myId").

QF-Test uses the widget ID, which is also used in the zul files, so you should get meaningful IDs for most of the objects.

The ZK framework also offers a custom IDGenerator to set such IDs. But implementing this could be quite exhaustive. In this case it might be a better choice to rely on the default mechanism of QF-Test.

In QF-Test version 4.1 we have re-worked the integration of most toolkits and adapted it to the concept of generic classes. In your already existing projects you can still use older versions of the provided AJAX resolvers. You can install those older resolvers via the procedure qfs.web.ajax.installToolkitResolver from the standard library qfs.qft.

The resolver was initially created for Ext JS version 2.

Its shortname for calling qfs.web.ajax.installToolkitResolver is extjs.

There is no separate Ext GWT resolver. Ext GWT is in fact a combination of Ext JS and GWT and QF-Test supports it by installing both the Ext JS and the GWT resolver.

Its shortname for calling qfs.web.ajax.installToolkitResolver is extgwt.

The Google Widget Toolkit has been supported starting with GWT version 1.5.

Its shortname for calling qfs.web.ajax.installToolkitResolver is gwt.

The resolver was developed against ICEfaces version 3.3.

Its shortname for calling qfs.web.ajax.installToolkitResolver is icefaces.

The resolver was developed against jQuery UI version 1.10.3.

Its shortname for calling qfs.web.ajax.installToolkitResolver is jqueryui.

The resolver was developed against PrimeFaces version 3.5.

Its shortname for calling qfs.web.ajax.installToolkitResolver is primefaces.

The resolver was developed against qooxdoo version 0.7.2.

Its shortname for calling qfs.web.ajax.installCustomWebResolver or qfs.web.ajax.installToolkitResolver is qooxdoo.

The resolver was developed against RAP version 1. Support for RAP version 2 and higher is complete.

Its shortname for calling qfs.web.ajax.installToolkitResolver is rap.

The resolver was developed against RichFaces versions 3 and 4.

Its shortname for calling qfs.web.ajax.installToolkitResolver is richfaces.

Vaadin is another toolkit that is based on GWT but comes with additional features and its own widget set.

Its shortname for calling qfs.web.ajax.installToolkitResolver is vaadin.

Last update: 07/25/2019 Copyright © 1999-2019 Quality First Software GmbH