Validating the properties of UI Controls

You can use the Coded UI Test Builder to add a user interface (UI) control to the UIMap for your test, or to generate code for a validation method that uses an assertion for a UI control.

To generate assertions for your UI controls, choose the Add Assertions tool in the Coded UI Test Builder and drag it to the control on the application under test that you want to verify is correct. When the box outlines your control, release the mouse. The control class code is immediately created in the UIMap.Designer.cs file.

The properties for this control are now listed in the Add Assertions dialog box.

Another way of navigating to a particular control is to choose the arrow (<<) to expand the view for the UI Control Map. To find a parent, sibling, or child control, you can click anywhere on the map and use the arrow keys to move around the tree.

• I don’t see any properties when I select a control in my application, or I don’t see the control in the UI Control Map.
  In the application code, the control that you want to verify must have a unique ID, such as an HTML ID attribute, or a WPF UId. You might need to update the application code to add these IDs.

Next, open the shortcut menu on the property for the UI control that you want to verify, and then point to Add Assertion. In the Add Assertion dialog box, select the Comparator for your assertion, for example AreEqual, and type the value for your assertion in Comparison Value.

When you have added all your assertions for your test, choose OK.

To generate the code for your assertions and add the control to the UI map, choose the Generate Code icon. Type a name for your coded UI test method and a description for the method, which will be added as comments for the method. Choose Add and Generate. Next, choose the Close icon to close the Coded UI Test Builder. This generates code similar to the following code. For example, if the name you entered isAssertForAddTwoNumbers, the code will look like this example:

• Adds a call to the assert method AssertForAddTwoNumbers to the test method in your coded UI test file:
        [TestMethod]
        public void CodedUITestMethod1()
        {
            this.UIMap.AddTwoNumbers();
            this.UIMap.AssertForAddTwoNumbers();
        }
  

  You can edit this file to change the order of the steps and assertions, or to create new test methods. To add more code, place the cursor on the test method and on the shortcut menu choose Generate Code for Coded UI Test.
• Adds a method called AssertForAddTwoNumbers to your UI map (UIMap.uitest). This file opens in the Coded UI Test Editor, where you can edit the assertions.
  
  You can also view the generated code of the assertion method in UIMap.Designer.cs. However, you should not edit this file. If you want to make an adapted version of the code, copy the methods to another file such as UIMap.cs, rename the methods, and edit them there.
        public void AssertForAddTwoNumbers()
        {
            ...
        }

The control I want to select loses focus and disappears when I try to select the Add Assertions tool from the Coded UI Test Builder. How do I select the control?

Selecting a hidden control using the keyboard

Sometimes, when adding controls and validating their properties, you might have to use the keyboard. For example, when you try to record a coded UI test that uses a context menu control, the list of menu items in the control will lose focus and disappear when you try to select the Add Assertions tool from the Coded UI Test Builder. This is demonstrated in the following illustration, where the context menu in Internet Explorer will lose focus and disappear if you try to select it with the Add Assertions tool.

To use the keyboard to select a UI control, hover over the control with the mouse. Then hold down theCtrl key and the I key at the same time. Release the keys. The control is recorded by the Coded UT Test Builder.

Caution
If you use Microsoft Lync, you must close Lync before you start the Coded UI Test Builder. Microsoft Lync interferes with the Ctrl+I keyboard shortcut.

I can’t record a mouse hover on a control. Is there a way around this?

Manually recording mouse hovers

Under some circumstances, a particular control that’s being used in a coded UI test might require you to use the keyboard to manually record mouse hover events. For example, when you test a Windows Form or a Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) application, there might be custom code. Or, there might be special behavior defined for hovering over a control, such as a tree node expanding when a user hovers over it. To test circumstances like these, you have to manually notify the Coded UI Test Builder that you are hovering over the control by pressing predefined keyboard keys.

When you perform your coded UI test, hover over the control. Then press and hold Ctrl, while you press and hold the Shift and R keys on your keyboard. Release the keys. A mouse hover event is recorded by the Coded UT Test Builder.

After you generate the test method, code similar to the following example will be added to the UIMap.Desinger.cs file:

// Mouse hover '1' label at (87, 9)
Mouse.Hover(uIItem1Text, new Point(87, 9));

The key assignment for capturing mouse hover events is being used elsewhere in my environment. Can I change the default key assignment?

Configuring mouse hover keyboard assignments

If necessary, the default keyboard assignment of Ctrl+Shift+R that is used to apply mouse hovering events in your coded UI tests can be configured to use different keys.

Caution
You should not have to change the keyboard assignments for mouse hover events under ordinary circumstances. Use caution when reassigning the keyboard assignment. Your choice might already be in use elsewhere within Visual Studio or the application being tested.

To change the keyboard assignments, you must modify the following configuration file:

<drive letter:>\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\CodedUITestBuilder.exe.config

In the configuration file, change the values for the HoverKeyModifier and HoverKey keys to modify the keyboard assignments:

<!-- Begin : Background Recorder Settings -->
<!-- HoverKey to use. -->
<add key="HoverKeyModifier" value="Control, Shift"/>
<add key="HoverKey" value="R"/>

I’m having issues with recording mouse hovers on a website. Is there a fix for this, too?

Setting implicit mouse hovers for the web browser

In many websites, when you hover over a particular control, it expands to show additional details. Generally, these look like menus in desktop applications. Because this is a common pattern, coded UI tests enable implicit hovers for Web browsing. For example, if you record hovers in Internet Explorer, an event is fired. These events can lead to redundant hovers getting recorded. Because of this, implicit hovers are recorded with ContinueOnError set to true in the UI test configuration file. This allows playback to continue if a hover event fails.

To enable the recording of implicit hovers in a Web browser, open the configuration file:

<drive letter:>\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\CodedUITestBuilder.exe.config

Verify that the configuration file has the key RecordImplicitiHovers set to a to a value of true as shown in the following sample:

<!--Use this to enable/disable recording of implicit hovers.-->
<add key="RecordImplicitHover" value="true"/>

To see recorded control code refer this post