Friday, March 16, 2012

Learning Coded UI Test in Visual Studio 2010

I have researched on UI Automation feature that available in Visual Studio 2010 since last 3 weeks.
It was a very tough journey for me since it was my first experience of using Visual Studio and it's features.
My first approach was to have a complete environment of testing with VS2010. This means that I need to have Team Foundation Server (TFS) completes with Test Manager and VS2010 Ultimate. My first approach was to install them individually, which was very time consuming and challenging. Somehow I've stumbled on Brian Keller blogs in MSDN whereby he has uploaded Virtual PC with complete VS2010 environment. That's make my life much easier apart from the long hour and large volumes of downloaded vpc.
I've also downloaded many videos from YouTube on Coded UI Test and UI Automation testing. I've watched the videos hundreds of hours so that I can get a better picture on the tool. I've also practiced hands-on in the victual PC, trying to follow all the examples shown in the videos.
My big challenge in using Coded UI Test was in understanding it's framework and coding. A lots of guessing games here and there on the terms, the codes and it's features. Somehow, I've manage to get around and get my full understanding on the tool.
New feature called Coded UI Test Editor is only available for MSDN subscribers in Feature Pack 2. This editor is very useful in editing the generated XML file for Coded UI Test.