Types of Displayed Objects

When you expand a node in the Object Browser, the amount of detail you see in the branches and in the Object Browser pages on the right depends on the nature of the process. If it is a non-visible process, you will see fairly little. However, you will see more if the process has windows, even if they are not visible because windows are registered with the operating system.

The system processes are shown with the icon. Windows of black-box applications are displayed with the glyph. Controls on these windows are marked with .

TestComplete supports a number of popular development tools, such as Microsoft Visual Studio, Delphi, C++Builder and others. If your application is created with one of the supported development tools, TestComplete will expose its internal elements to the Object Browser. Exposed objects, properties and methods will also be available to your tests. Such applications instrumented for white-box testing under TestComplete are called Open Applications.

TestComplete also supports specific technologies that allow you to get information about the user interface of applications of any type (for instance, Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) and UI Automation).

Open Applications (except for Visual C++ Open Applications, Android Open Applications and applications that use the MSAA or UI Automation technology) are displayed with the icon to the right of their names in the Object Tree. Objects that Open Applications expose to TestComplete are displayed with a glyph that indicates the type of the given Open Application:

• - .NET or WPF Open Applications
• - Visual C++ Open Applications
• - Visual Basic Open Applications
• - Delphi or C++Builder Open Applications
• - Java Open Applications
• - JavaFX Open Applications
• - Web applications in Internet Explorer or the WebBrowser control
• - Web applications in Microsoft Edge
• - Web applications in Firefox
• - Web applications in Chrome
• - XUL UI objects in Gecko-based applications.
• - Silverlight Open Applications
• - Flash Open Applications
• - Flex Open Applications
• - AIR Open Applications
• - Qt Open Applications
• - iOS applications (instrumented)
• - Android applications (instrumented)
• - Xamarin.Forms applications
• - Applications whose objects TestComplete accesses via the MSAA or UI Automation engine
• - Applications whose objects TestComplete accesses using the Text Recognition technology

The information shown in the Object Browser cannot be updated continuously in either of the Browser panes without taking up significant CPU time. Instead the Browser analyzes memory to get the information it will display when it is launched, and also whenever you open up a branch in the object hierarchy. However, the structure of running processes can change any time. The Object Browser information can be refreshed any time by using the Refresh button on the Edit toolbar, the Shift+Alt+R shortcut or the context menu (refreshing does not work during the test execution).

See Also

About Object Browser
Object Browser Settings
Exploring Applications
Open Applications
Testing Android Applications (Legacy)