Proxy development best practices

Following best practices while you develop proxies can help make your work more efficient and effective. Consider these methods to enhance your development efforts.

Use the appropriate hierarchy for GUI objects

GUI objects are arranged in two related hierarchies: parent-child and owner-owned. An example of parent-child relationship is a dialog box and a contained button. An example of an owner-owned relationship is a top-level window and a dialog box. Use any one type of hierarchy for an object.

In proxy implementation, it is common for the underlying object model (for example, Java and HWND) to confuse these two relationships, and treats the owner-owned relationship as an asymmetric parent-child relationship. In this case, the proxy must deny having a parent when the preferable relationship model is owner/owned. The methods that can be used for going through the hierarchy are getParent(), getChildren(), getOwner(), and getOwned().

Avoid returning different types for the same property

Properties are named values. The property itself does not have a type; the value has a type. Avoid making proxies return different types for the same property. Sometimes a property value can be a reference to an object rather than a value. If such a value is returned to a script, it is returned as a TestObject. The methods to access the properties include getProperty(), setProperty(), getProperties(), and getNonValueProperties().

Use the Object Library to assign recognition properties and weights for the objects

By default, the new proxy objects might not have object recognition properties and weights. Use the Object Library to assign the recognition properties and weights. The methods for accessing the object recognition properties and weights are getRecognitionProperties() and getRecognitionPropertyWeight(). If more than one object of the same class exists within the parent object, add the .classIndex property (a positive numeric value starting at 0), as a recognition property for the child object.

Manage mappable hierarchies

Generally, the entire hierarchy of the objects are mapped. However, certain objects are likely to change frequently between builds of the test application. For example, in Java, it is common to add panels to cluster objects together. With Functional Tester the user can specify not to map the proxy object. Even though the non-mappable objects are not in the test object map, the object hierarchy lists them while you traverse through the parent-child hierarchy. The methods for managing the mappable hierarchy include shouldBeMapped(), getMappableParent(), and getMappableChildren().

Use canonical properties

In some cases, the underlying object model supports a notion of properties, for example, Java, HTML, and .NET. Functional Tester allow proxies to implement additional properties. If a proxy implements a property directly, the property name must have a different pattern to avoid confusion with any property of the object. Begin the regular properties name that might be used for recognition should with a dot (.). Certain administrative properties are used by the framework that cannot be used for recognition, these property names begin with a number sign (#).

Invoking object methods

In many cases, the underlying object has methods that can be found and invoked. These are usually managed directly by the framework and the domain implementation, but getMethod() is commonly implemented on a base proxy in a domain.

Use well-defined scriptable methods

Make mouse actions play back from the glass whenever possible. If a method name includes "click" or "drag", have mouse events perform the action . Do not use method names like "click" or "drag" if mouse events are not used to implement the action. Do not use method names that refer to keys or the keyboard if keyboard events do not implement the action. Make the methods reflect the action that is going to be performed and reliable during playback. Avoid heuristics.

Manage subitems

Objects can contain other objects and might have an internal structure that is not exposed as a nested object or objects. For example, a list might have items in it, but the items are not exposed by the list object as objects themselves. This kind of behavior is common in HWND-based objects. The most common method to deal with subitems are getSubitem() and the mouse action methods such as click(), drag(), and doubleClick(). The getSubitem() method returns a null or a string.

Use any of the following strategies if you do not want the objects in the subitems to be exposed as full-fledged objects:

Exceptions and Errors

Follow these rules while implementing exceptions and errors:

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