VideoRecorder Extension

You use the VideoRecorder extension to record videos for your test runs. The resulting video file helps you understand what happened in the tested application and in your system during the test playback. This is especially useful in cases when it is difficult to understand the cause of an error, for example, when you are analyzing errors occurred during an automated test run at night.

VideoRecorder is similar to Test Visualizer, but provides more convenient results: it is easier to watch a seamless video than to analyze a sequence of images. Also, Test Visualizer captures screenshots only when a test simulates some user action, while VideoRecorder registers all the events that occur in the system, including those that happened between user actions.

VideoRecorder is built as a TestComplete script extension.

It uses the video recording functionality provided by the free open-source VLC media player by VideoLAN (https://www.videolan.org/).

VideoRecorder is not part of the TestComplete package and is distributed separately from the product. You can get it from GitHub for free:

https://github.com/SmartBear/testcomplete-videorecorder-extension

After you downloaded the sources, you need to build the extension file yourself. This is a matter of running one .bat file from the command line.

For complete information on building, installing and using the extension, see its description in the GitHub repository:

https://github.com/SmartBear/testcomplete-videorecorder-extension/blob/master/README.md

A few key points:

• Before installing the extension in TestComplete, download and install the VLC media player (https://www.videolan.org/).

• The extension provides keyword-test operations, as well as a special script object to start and stop video recording from tests. That is, you can use the extension in both keyword tests and script tests.

  If you use TestExecute to run the tests, install the extension in your TestExecute copies, as well.

• It is important that you start the recording from your test, because the extension cannot use a recorder that is running in the system.

  Also, it is very important that you stop the recorder from your test after all the test actions are over. If you do not do this, the extension will not be able to start the recorder when you run the test next time, because you will have a running video recorder in the system. If your test failed and did not get to the “Stop” command, you have to close the recorder process manually. You can do this from the Windows Task Manager dialog box, for example.

For complete information on using VideoRecorder, please see its description in GitHub.

The VideoRecorder extension is not part of the TestComplete package and is not supported by the SmartBear Customer Care engineers. You can ask questions and share your usage experience in our TestComplete Community:

https://community.smartbear.com/t5/TestComplete/ct-p/TestComplete_forum