General recording specifics
When recording user actions, TestComplete takes into account various factors and events that occur in the system and in the application under test. These factors and events affect the test commands that TestComplete records:
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During recording, TestComplete recognizes windows and controls with which you are working, and records user actions as calls to methods and properties of these objects. If it is impossible to do that, TestComplete resorts to recording mouse clicks with coordinates and keyboard events. Low-level recording like mouse movements or pressing and releasing mouse buttons is also possible, but in many cases it is not so convenient as object-level recording.
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Depending on the tested application and on its controls, keyboard input can be recorded with the
SetTextorKeysmethod call. -
Some third-party software can prevent recording keyboard events.
We recommend that you read the Recording Specifics topic that mentions the points you should pay your attention to and describes possible issues and workarounds. The sections below describe the specifics of recording tests for web applications.
Specifics of recording tests for web applications
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TestComplete may fail to record any user actions over web pages in Firefox if content sandboxing is enabled in it. To avoid this issue, disable the sandboxing. To learn how to do it, see Preparing Firefox for Web Testing.
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In Internet Explorer, TestComplete cannot record cross-platform web tests if the compatibility mode is turned on. To avoid it, open Tools>Compatibility View settings in the browser. If you are using IE 11, uncheck the Display intranet sites in Compatibility View option. In the case of IE 10, uncheck both the Display all websites in Compatibility View and Display intranet sites in Compatibility View options. Also, we highly recommend using Firefox or Google Chrome to record cross-platform web tests since not all selectors can be used in IE.
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TestComplete does not record mouse wheel actions over web applications. To simulate wheel actions in your tests, you can add the appropriate commands to your tests manually. See Simulating Mouse Wheel Rotation.
Note: In your tests, you do not need to simulate scrolling tested web pages to reach a tested object over which user actions will be simulated. TestComplete scrolls web pages automatically.
Ignoring dynamic parameters in URLs
By default, TestComplete records the complete URLs of web pages, including query strings. However, query parameters can change, which can cause errors when accessing the pages during subsequent test runs. To ignore query string changes, use the Ignore dynamic URL parameters project option. For more information, see Ignoring Query String Parameters.
Silverlight applications
When TestComplete records user actions invoking a common dialog box like Save File or Open File in a Silverlight application, the “Dialogs must be user-initiated” security error may occur. This happens due to some security restrictions in Silverlight.
To get more details on this issue and to learn how you can workaround it when recording tests for a Silverlight application, see –
Recording User Actions Over Silverlight Applications - Specifics