Getting Started

Last modified on May 18, 2023.

Sign Up for a Free Trial

  1. Head to the VisualTest free trial page https://try.smartbear.com/visualtest:

    VisualTest login screen

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  2. Complete the required fields. Note: your entity's VisualTest account is linked permanently to the email address you use in this step.

  3. Check your inbox for the confirmation email.

  4. Click the verification link in your email. It opens the VisualTest login screen.

  5. Log in with your SmartBear credentials.

When you first launch VisualTest, an Example Project is loaded automatically to give you a first look at the functionality:

VisualTest Example Project

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Configure VisualTest

To configure VisualTest, you need to:

  1. Generate a project-specific token
  2. Integrate VisualTest into your automated UI tests
  3. Run VisualTest
  4. Review differences found
Generate project token
  1. At launch, VisualTest shows the Projects screen. Click on Create Project and name your Project, as shown below:

    Create VisualTest Project

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  2. Click Create. VisualTest generates your project and a project-specific token.
  3. Copy your project token, as in the following image. You need this to integrate VisualTest into your functional test scripts.

    Copy project token

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    The following video shows these steps:

     

If ever you need to find your project token later, it is available from project settings:

Find VisualTest Project Token

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Integrate VisualTest into your UI tests

To integrate VisualTest into your UI tests:

  1. Install one of the Software Development Kits (SDKs) to add screenshot capture commands where you’d like to add visual coverage.

    The following video gives an example of inserting the project token into your script.

     
  2. Choose from one of the following capture formats:

    • Fullpage – captures the whole page
    • Viewport – captures the visible portion of the page
    • Element – captures a specific visual element
Run your tests

VisualTest is designed to run using your existing functional UI test flows and framework. Simply run your VisualTest integrated test scripts using your test framework’s command of choice, either locally or via any CI/CD systems.

The following video shows an example of running a test.

 

Regardless of how you run your tests, VisualTest returns a console log output (see below) containing a link to accept and review any found image differences in your GUI.

Console Log Output

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Review any visual differences

There are two ways to review found differences:

  1. Follow the output link given in the console log.

  2. Open the VisualTest platform.

  3. Accept or reject differences. Read how in Comparisons.

Your team can find all your test runs in any given Project, listed chronologically by default, as in the following image.

Test Run Output

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Each test run presents at a high level all the images that need review, and each review status is timestamped. Any team members who have access to the VisualTest platform can approve or reject any of the visual differences found.

Difference approval screen

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See Also

SmartBear ID
License Management
VisualTest Documentation

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