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Feature Friday – Best Way to Simplify Finding Locators and Locator Values
A feeling we have all felt is being lost for a word. Maybe a name or a recently visited place but being able to paint an image in your mind while tasting the word on the tip of your tongue. A word so familiar that you laugh at your inability to remember it. Not the best feeling and if prolonged can because extremely tedious. A similar feeling exists in automated testing with impossible to locate elements. In essence, the element exists on the screen, and is visible, but cannot be found in the code or by conventional testing methods. Whether it is a text box, image, or title, the element has no basic or obvious locator. And depending on the complexity and design of the page and application this can become a menacing problem over large-scale test creation and deployment. This leads us to the topic of this Weeks Feature Friday Where Milton and Kiwaun will discuss how Qyrus mitigates these exact problems through a range of tools for difficult to find locators.
Tell us more about how Qyrus handles difficult to find locators, and these features use cases.
Milton:
Leading automated testing solutions often struggle to find locators and locator values. While some work seamlessly that’s not always the case across all applications, devices, screens, or elements. To solve this problem Qyrus offers a range of features and functionalities. One example is tap by relative coordinates which allows the user to tap on the screen based on a percentage.
Kiwaun:
Exactly, often even locators that Appium and other solutions cannot find can be located. Some other functionalities for exactly this include the recorder for both web and mobility allows the user to just click anywhere on the environment to find the locator data of the element, tap and click by coordinate offerings to click by screen location among more.
What are the features, regarding difficult to find locators, and their overall impact on the testing process?
Kiwaun:
So these features are not as simple as selecting the element of choice. When users have access to any and every element across the screen the testing output is endless. This increases both creativity and coverage and allows the testing of true end-to-end user journeys.
Milton:
And being able to access any given resource at any given time and find its true impact within the test-building process. Regardless of the application code, screen, device, or any other settings being able to select and interact with any given element enables effort reduction and increases test coverage.
How might tools to find difficult locators help testers, developers, and business technologists? What value can this feature bring?
Milton:
These features are important to testers as they can use the step recorder or some of the specific action types to find otherwise inaccessible locator data. This allows for continual and smooth testing allowing testers to get all required test-building data without ever leaving the solution. Also interacting with more elements allows for more of the application to be tested expanding coverage.
Kiwaun:
Developers can also establish which elements are difficult to test or require different locator inputs within the application code. This makes applications more accessible, and easier to use, allowing developers to adhere to best practices. Within regression suites, implementing constant development and deployment this feature makes it very easy to extend test case coverage and reuse test scripts.
Milton:
Even business analysts can utilize these features. When test building is this simple, business analysts can interact with all elements and follow the most impactful user journeys to insure functionality and quality of experience. This invites more of the team into the testing process and enables high-quality applications with flawless user experience.
Does the same or similar functionality exist without Qyrus, and how do competitors address similar problems?
Milton:
Though finding difficult locators is possible, other methods are much less conventional and require diving deep into the code base. This requires a knowledge of not only the language but also how the page is constructed to locate the proper element.
Kiwaun:
Exactly. Qyrus offers multiple options to locate difficult-to-find elements. Utilizing action types specific and verifying elements by type or utilizing recorders and inspect mode options to course across screens and select desired elements. These features and functionalities are unique to Qyrus and truly optimize the test-building process.
How do you see Qyrus tools to find difficult locators impact day-to-day operations across organizations?
Kiwaun:
Well the impacts are truly seen within the test-building process but the impact can be noted across the whole QA cycle. With more options to find elements and multiple locator options, testing teams have the ability to adhere to best practices and create high-quality test scripts without flaky locators.
Milton:
Exactly and this leads to fewer test failures and broken scripts. Especially when considering regression suites and pipelines these failures can be catastrophic and constantly fixing broken scripts due to shaky locators is an inefficient use of resources. This is why Qyrus offers a range of tools to locate elements alongside locator options to utilize and maintain strong, reusable test scripts.
Kiwaun:
And that is not a one-time, or quick impact but one that can be seen upon every build, and execution.
The foundation of automated test scripts is locators and locator values. Primarily having the option to select strong locators to build your test scripts as well as the proper values to ensure exact functionality. Though difficult to find locators is a generally tedious issue, it can be weed to kill a garden in terms of regression. In often cases, another brittle or flaky locator type will be used, which over time, and when individual scripts develop into regression suites and enter pipelines this becomes a significantly larger issue. Qyrus offers a range of features and functionalities for difficult-to-find locators to simplify the test-building process, mitigate unnecessary headaches, and solidify the foundation of test scripts ultimately optimizing regression suites, pipelines, and the entire testing process. Join us next week as we dive further into different Qyrus features and functionalities that optimize testing and quality assurance.
