[NEWS] Finally switched to UFT 11.5! \o/

So, after a very long time in silence I'm back with several news. Some of them are good, most of them are not. Let's head straight to the first impressions.

I'm gonna be honest with you, I switched directly from QTP 10.0 to UFT 11.5 (skipped QTP 11 and all its bugs). QTP 10.0 has it's known bugs and enhancement points (several of them are described here in my blog) but, looking at the bright side, it's fast and (somewhat) reliable. In terms of technology, it's a pretty much dominated piece of software up to this point.

So making the switch to a whole new platform sometimes is a painfull process that we have to go through. I got a new machine running Windows 7, IE9, Chrome 28 and Firefox 24.1 ESR and a little time to settle things down. So, let's take a look on what's been on:

PROS

New redesigned GUI (but not all screens were not updated)

Good to see we have a new snowy white GUI, instead of the old silver-95sh look. Now UFT looks a lot as a development tool. Too bad that not all minor screens were ported to this new standard.

New editor component

Code editor has its slice on the UFT changes. Most of the are for good. Now we can zoom in and out by Ctrl + and Crtl -, no more blank lines at the end of action code, Shift + Space key combination now works as expected, and more.

New left side menu (Solution Explorer)

It took me a lot of time to get used to this new control pane, but once you learn how to use it, you won't wish to come back. Direct access to global repository, library functions and Recovery Scenarios are a must.

Ctrl+Z on datatable

Can't believe HP actually changed the datatable excel component and this time you can use Control+Z command on its cells. Note: you can use it only once, but at least now you can.

Highlight the spying objects

In Spy Objects screen, when you spy any object now you can highlight an specific object at any level in the hierarchy tree. Also, from the Object Spy screen, you can tell UFT to include the selected object into your objects lybrary without having to recapture it in your application.

Sync works better

Sync command works better on page objects.

Changes to global repositories seem to reflected immediately in your code

Pretty much self-explanatory. It's not a 100%  perfect, still has bugs, but it's much better than before.

New regular expression evaluator

Now, in case you are not sure if your regular expression will work or not, you can try this new feature called Regular expression evaluator.

CONS

Sliding pops-ups windows

Ok, so enough of good things, lets take a look on the bad side. Now, some of the pop-up screen you open slowly slide from top to down, as a unfold effect. Completely unnecessary.

Mouse scroll wheel doesn't work on all objects

I can't remember how many places in UFT don't recognize the mouse scroll wheel.

Objects repository looks awful

Object repository screen (as well as other screens) hasn't been updated to the new standard, but some parts have white background. So, it looks terrible. All bugs remain from previous QTP versions.

Results viewer bugs

Results viewer application is one of the worst parts of UFT bunde. Sluggish, buggy. missing features... all but a good piece of software.

Abode Flex doesn't work well

Now things have changed around. UFT is said to support Adobe Flex 4.5 and later. If you want to automate applications using earlier versions of Flex, you have to go back to QTP 10 or 11 with Adobe's add-in. This is not a 100% truth, as I made some tests and UFT is capable of handling older Flex components if you use Windows XP and IE7. Other combination of OS + browser won't work at all.

There are a lot more to come. Stay tunned.

First things first...

I would like to start this blog with a very simple question: who tests the testing tool? This question sounds just like the "who came first, the chicken or the egg?" question. If you are like me and work in Information Technology (IT) area, you know that all types of software require extensive testing, sometimes requiring the aid of a testing tool to help you test faster and cover more and more testing scenarios. That's when QTP comes in hand.

Software testing has increasingly received more and more importance overtime in IT world, as the software development companies evolve their systems to godzila-size scales. And one of the questions that emerges from this long continuum development cycles is "does this new version/build/release maintain ALL the previous functionalities in place? haven't we brake something that was correctly work before?".

Here is where Regression Testing enters the scene. This type of test serves to help development teams (analysts, developers, testers included) to make sure that working features keep working as expected in the next to-be-released system versions, because the focus is to test already-in-place functions (not the new ones).

I personally work on one of these software development companies, particularly in software testing automation area, and I was hired mainly due to my previous 2 years experience working with QTP on a global technology company. Back at that time, I had the chance to work with versions 8.2 and 9.1. Now the challenge was to face QTP 10.0 and - since last week - 11.0 plus latest critical patches.

And for the past two years, I've been struggling with QTP. Seriously, everyday is like a battle against this tool. Bugs, crashes and lack of useful features mine this software's usability on a daily basis. So I thought "why not build a blog and post all the shit problems we face on the internet and let other people (aka automators) know and share their experiences? maybe - if I'm EXTREMELY lucky - HP will take the blame and fix these issues once and for all?" Sound like good reasons, right? Well, they do to me and here I am.

But, back to my main question, who tests the testing tool?

Sometimes I feel like no one gives a shit penny for this tool at HP and I will show why. Or probably, this is one of those projects no one ever dares to touch and prays to stay as far as possible from it. And that's what I will mainly cover in this blog - all the problems my team faces when using QTP with a good amount of humor. And to be fairly honest, I probably know more about QTP itself than any HP developer does.

Hope you enjoy reading it and have some fun, just like I do reporting these issues. :)
Feel free to leave your comments and - mainly - share your personal frustrations with this tool.