4. Creating Operation's Fields

Most keyword test operations provide a number of customizable settings that control the operation's functionality. In the operation source code, these settings can be implemented as fields or parameters or their combination. The two major differences between fields and parameters are:

• Parameters are accessible both by the operation code and by TestComplete and the users. Fields are “visible” only in the operation code. (However, user access to fields can be provided via custom forms displayed by the operation.)

• Parameters can store Variant-compatible data types (numbers, strings, boolean values, and so on) as well as specific values, such as keyword test variables, last operation result, and others. Fields can only store Variant-compatible values.

In this tutorial, we will store the operation’s data in fields, because they are easier to implement and to manage in the operation code.

Our sample operation will contain the following fields:

To create operation fields, we need to add their definition to the description file:

• Open the C:\My Extension Files\LogAttrExtension\description.xml file in your text or XML editor.

• Add the following text to the file:

  XML

  XML

  [description.xml]
  
  <?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-8"?>
  <ScriptExtensionGroup>
    <Category Name = "Keyword Test Operations">
      <ScriptExtension Name = "Log Attributes Keyword Test Operation" Author = "SmartBear Software" Version = "1.0 test" HomePage = "smartbear.com">    
        <Description>Provides the Log Attributes keyword test operation.</Description>
        <Script Name = "laCode.js">
  
          <KDTOperation Name = "Log Attributes" Category = "Logging">
            <Data>
              <!-- General properties -->
              <Field Name = "Description" />
              <!-- Log Attributes object properties -->
              <Field Name = "FontColor" />
              <Field Name = "BackColor" />
              <Field Name = "Bold" />
              <Field Name = "Italic" />
              <Field Name = "Underline" />
              <Field Name = "Strikeout" />
              <Field Name = "PlainTextRemarks" />
            </Data>
          </KDTOperation>
  
        </Script>        
      </ScriptExtension>
    </Category>
  </ScriptExtensionGroup>

• Save the changes.

As you can see, to define methods of the object, we added the child Data element to the KDTOperation element and a number of child Field elements to the Data element. Let’s take a look at one of the Field elements:

The Name attribute of this element specifies the field name. This name will be used to address the field in the operation’s code, so it must be a valid identifier in any scripting language supported by TestComplete. The easiest way to follow this rule is to use only letters (A..Z, a..z), digits (0..9) and underscores ( _ ) in the name and start it with a letter. The field name must also be unique among other fields of the operation.

The Field element may have the DefaultValue attribute holding the default value for the field. We will not use this attribute in this tutorial though. Instead, we will specify the default field values in the operation’s initialization routine, which we will create on the next step.

For details about elements and attributes that are used in the description files, see topics of the Script Extension Files section.

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See Also

Script Extensions
Creating Operation Parameters and Fields