Recording Options Dialog

Applies to TestComplete 15.47, last modified on January 20, 2023

The options in the Recording Options dialog affect test recording (see Recording Automated Tests).

To call the dialog, do any of the following:

  • At design time, select Tools > Options from the main menu and then select Engines > Recording from the tree displayed on the left side of the resulting Options dialog.

– or –

  • During test recording, click on the Recording toolbar and then click Other Options.

You can change the following options:

  • General - This group contains options that affect recording of all kinds of tests.

    • Automatically add applications to the Tested Applications list - If this option is enabled, TestComplete will automatically add Windows-based applications started during recording to the Tested Applications collection of your project. This will make managing the applications under test easier and more convenient. For detailed information on recording the application’s start, see Recording Automated Tests.

    • Minimize TestComplete - If the option is enabled TestComplete minimizes before recording a test. This prevents TestComplete from overlapping the application’s windows.

      This option does not affect the Mobile Screen window which must be opened when recording tests for mobile applications.

    • Real-time mode - If this option is enabled, TestComplete will record the actual time intervals passed between user actions and insert them into the recorded test as the Delay operations (if you are recording a keyword test) or the aqUtils.Delay method calls (if you are recording a script).

    • Save before recording - If it is enabled, every time you command test recording TestComplete saves changes made to the project.

    • Enable Quick Checkpoints - If this option is enabled, you can create Quick Checkpoints when recording tests for desktop and web applications.

    • Record unsupported controls using OCR - Available only if you have a license for the TestComplete Intelligent Quality add-on, and support for Optical Character Recognition is enabled in TestComplete. If this option is enabled, TestComplete will try recording user actions on screen areas using their text contents it recognizes with optical character recognition. Otherwise, if the option is disabled, or if the area cannot be identified by its text, TestComplete will record coordinate-based actions or (for Android applications in legacy mobile tests) image-based actions.

  • Record text input into simple editors as - Specifies whether TestComplete should record text input into single-line edit controls by using the SetText or Keys action.

    By default, the SetText option is selected, and TestComplete records text input as the SetText action. In this mode only, TestComplete stores password values into password variables to mask password values in recorded tests.

    However, some applications may behave incorrectly during the test run if SetText is used to enter text in them. This usually happens if your application handles keystroke events that occur in edit controls to detect and process keyboard input. Since SetText does not raise keystroke events in applications, the corresponding event handlers will not be executed. As a result, your application may react to simulated actions and to real user actions in a different way.

    If this issue affects your tested application, select the Keys option to configure TestComplete to record text input by using the Keys action instead of SetText. For tests recorded from now on, this will ensure that all relevant events will be raised and event handlers will be executed in your tested application during the test run. For more information on automating keyboard input, see Simulating Keystrokes.

    This option is ignored in the following cases:

    • Text input in multi-line edit controls, like QtLineEdit or QtTextEdit, is always recorded by using the Keys action.

    • Text input in Android EditText controls is always recorded by using the SetText action.

    • Text input in iOS TextField controls is recorded as setting the wText property if you do not press the Return (Enter) button at the end of the input.

  • Script Recording - This group contains options that only affect script recording.

    • Do not generate variables - Specifies whether TestComplete uses variables in the recorded script code. If this setting is disabled (default), TestComplete may assign some objects (for instance, processes or windows) to temporary variables and then call methods and properties of the objects through these variables. This makes the recorded script statements shorter, but in some cases this may make the script difficult to understand. If the setting is enabled, TestComplete addresses objects by full names rather than by variables.

See Also

TestComplete Options
Recording Automated Tests

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