Remote Browser Loop Operation

Description

You use the Remote Browser Loop operation in web tests you run in device clouds. The operation connects to the device cloud managed by CrossBrowserTesting.com, launches the specified web browsers one after another, and runs all child operations in each of them.

Video tutorial

Requirements

• TestComplete 14.8.

• An active license for the TestComplete Web Module.

• The Web Testing plugin and the Cross-Platform Web Testing plugin must be enabled in TestComplete (they are installed and enabled by default).

• An active CrossBrowserTesting account.

  Note: If you do not have an account, you can sign up for a free trial directly from TestComplete—TestComplete will suggest that you do this automatically if it does not find appropriate account data when you add the operation to your test.

• The CrossBrowserTesting web site must be accessible from the computer where TestComplete is installed.

  If you use the CrossBrowserTesting device cloud as your Selenium Grid provider, the computer where TestComplete is installed must have access to CrossBrowserTesting.com. If there are any firewalls or proxies in your network, make sure that they allow traffic to that website. If needed, configure the firewall to allow outbound connections on ports 80 and 443 to CrossBrowserTesting.com.

• Your tested web application must be accessible from your testing environments managed by Selenium Grid. If your tested web application resides behind a firewall in your local network or on your local computer, consider opening a secure tunnel between your environments and your tested application. See Access Web Applications Behind a Firewall.

• If you use OCR (optical character recognition) in tests, your remote environments must have access to the TestComplete optical recognition service residing at https://ocr.api.dev.smartbear.com. In addition, if you have firewalls or proxies in your testing environments, they must allow traffic through port 443. The tests use this port to communicate with the recognition service.

  Note: Environments provided by the CrossBrowserTesting device cloud meet this requirement by default.

Operation Result

The operation does not return any value.

Scripting Analogue

The operation is similar to specifying the desired capabilities of the target platforms and running the remote web browsers by using the Browsers.RemoteItem.Run method in a loop.

Child Operations

The operation cannot have child operations.

Operation Parameters

When you add the operation to your keyword test, TestComplete displays a wizard that contains the following pages.

Sign In to Your Account

The wizard shows this page if your project does not have a CrossBrowserTesting.com account specified.

On this page, you can connect to your existing CrossBrowserTesting.com account or create a new trial account:

Using an existing account - Show instructions

Using an existing account - Show instructionsUsing an existing account - Show instructions

To specify your active CrossBrowserTesting account:

1. Add the operation to your keyword test.

2. If TestComplete fails to find an active CrossBrowserTesting account, it will show the Sign In to Your Account form.

3. Enter the email address and password you use to connect to CrossBrowserTesting (you can specify the email and password of your account or subaccount):

   

   Click the image to enlarge it.

   Click Sign In.

TestComplete will validate the account data.

Creating a free trial account - Show instructions

Creating a free trial account - Show instructionsCreating a free trial account - Show instructions

If you do not have a CrossBrowserTesting account, you can sign up for a free trial directly from TestComplete:

1. Add the operation to your keyword test.

2. If TestComplete fails to find an active CrossBrowserTesting account, it will show the Sign In to Your Account form. Click Try for free.

3. Enter your email address and the password you will use to connect to the CrossBrowserTesting:

   

   Click the image to enlarge it.

4. Click Start Trial.

   Important: The email address you specify must be valid. You will have to confirm it. The password must not be blank and must contain at least 6 alphanumeric symbols. You can find complete information on password requirements on the CrossBrowserTesting web site.

CrossBrowserTesting accounts are time-limited. Also, they limit the number of concurrent test runs, the number of test minutes and the number of subaccounts. You can find information on your account on the Account Details form in TestComplete or on your account page of the CrossBrowserTesting web site.

To learn about CrossBrowserTesting terms of use, see Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

Select Browsers to Iterate Through

On this page, you specify the list of browsers that operation will use:

• To add a single browser, click Add. In the resulting Run Remote Browser dialog, select the web browser and platform where you want to simulate user actions.

• To add multiple browsers at once, click Add Multiple. In the resulting Add Run Remote Browser Group dialog, select browsers and platforms where you want to simulate user actions.

• To modify an added browser, select the browser in the list and click Change. In the resulting dialog, change the selected platform, or browser, or other parameters.

• To change the order in which the browsers will be launched, drag the browsers in the list to form the needed order.

• To temporarily exclude a browser from a test run, clear the check box next to the browser in the list.

• To remove a browser from the list, select it and click Remove.

• To remove all the browsers from the list, click Clear.

To configure the operation to close the browser instances at the end of the iteration, select the Close browser after using check box (selected by default).

To configure the operation to run its child operations in a browser on a local computer, select the Run on a local computer check box. If there is no supported web browser running on the local computer, the operation will post an error to the test log and will not run.

When you specify all the needed web browsers, click Next.

Operation Parameters

On this page, you can specify the following parameters:

URL

Specifies the URL of the web page that the web browser will open when it is launched.

Note: We recommend that you specify the protocol in the URL. Typically, the protocol is either http or https, for example, http://mysite.com or https://my.accounts.com.

PageLoadWaitTime

Specifies the time (in milliseconds) to wait until the browser loads the page and becomes ready to accept user input. If this parameter is omitted or set to -1 (the default value), the timeout is specified by the project’s Web page loading timeout option. After the specified time limit is reached, the test run proceeds.

See Also

Web Category
CrossBrowserTesting.com
About Cross-Platform Web Tests
Iterate Through Remote Testing Environments
Run Browser Operation