TestComplete Tips and Tricks

…or maybe a good acquaintance, in any case, it’s something all TestComplete users should know about. Without a doubt, one of the 5 most oft asked questions when I’m doing TestComplete training sessions is, “Ack! Argh! I messed up my TestComplete panel layout – how do I get it back to normal?!” (Perhaps with some other words substituted for the “Ack” or “Argh”)

TestComplete offers a real convenience in allowing us to thoroughly customize the panel layout of the workspace; however, if we’re not careful, that power can damage our calm.

If you ever find yourself in a place where your TestComplete desktop is completely unusable due to docking chaos, remember that you have a panic button of sorts: Restore Default Docking. This will cause your overly customized desktop to revert to its factory settings. To access this little wonder, select View from the Main Menu, Desktop, then Restore Default Docking. That’s View|Desktop|Restore Default Docking.

Note, however, that since the TestComplete Workspace - where all the editors appear as tabbed pages:

- since the Workspace is just another panel in the TestComplete main docking, you’ll have to restore the editors within the Workspace with a separate command:

Right-click one of the tabbed pages in the Workspace and select Default Docking in Workspace to restore order to the Workspace panel.

In the AutomatedQA newsgroups and forums I regularly see questions that are basically, “Help! I need to understand how to use TestComplete; where do I start?” Granted, TestComplete is vast in scope and can be rather daunting, as it is a full-blown development IDE, only for test automation development. However, the answer, as you might expect, is rather straight-forward: start with the docs.

AutomatedQA has provided some great start-up materials with TestComplete:

• Getting Started with TestComplete - this document can be found in your TestComplete install in the Help directory, ususally something like ”[ProgramFiles]\Automated QA\TestComplete 5\Help\Getting Started with TestComplete 5.doc”.

• It can also be accessed via the Windows Start Menu group for TestComplete.

• It’s also available as a pdf document at http://www.automatedqa.com/downloads/Docs/Getting_Started_With_TestComplete.pdf.

• There is also a “Getting Started” topic in the TestComplete help file. If you open the help file, then select “Introduction|Introducing TestComplete” from the Contents tree, you’ll see the Getting Started link on that page.

• The help file itself is a great resource. Simply browsing it can be of benefit for getting a handle on what’s available in the product.

• And as a final thought, the many, many sample test projects and sample tested applications (both Open and Connected) that are available in your TestComplete install in the Samples directory. Just go in there and start opening TestComplete projects. Run them, and see what they do.

Hope all that helps those of you who are new to TestComplete with a running start…

…and the TestComplete Tips and Tricks blog is launched. Welcome.

I’ve been working with the TC6 beta, and it’s rather exciting. The Code Editor Enhancements alone are worth the price of admission.

Also exciting is that most of my TestComplete plug-ins are plugging right in with no issues. I hope to have the new TC6-compatible versions out as soon as TC6 releases, or soon after.