Tips - Scripting with Newtest Robot 7.5.0

WaitWndStr function
The character string search function (WaitWndStr) is obsolete with IE9. New browser versions use DirectX and Direct2D libraries that are incompatible with the function WaitWndStr. You must therefore replace this method with an OCR search method (WaitAppStrOcr in 7.5.0, WaitWndOcr in 7.5.1) or image search method (WaitSearchBitmap).

It is worth noting that this change in method implies modifying chronometers (timers/stopwatches). These changes must be taken into account in the calculation of your SLAs.

WaitSearchBitmap function
WaitSearchBitmap has been enriched in Newtest Robot version 7.5.0 to include, for example, the possibility of finding images by their occurrence. These additions required a change to the search-in-the-page algorithm. The response times associated with this function may therefore be longer.

Using external variables
With a view to the setup of a central repository, scenarios that use relative names and paths will have to be overhauled in favor of new functions.
Some global variables are defined upon execution in order to facilitate scenario configuration. These variables are accessible by using the syntax $(XXX), for example, $(scenario_name) for the name of the scenario. All of these functions must replace the data that was propagated via the function GetInfo() in the newtest.ini file.

The list of available variables is presented in the NTBR online help (press the F1 key to display). Some examples of variables:

$(BASE_DIR)	$(EXE_DIR)
$(SCENARIO_NAME)	$(RESULT_DIR)
$(SCENARIO_DIR)	$(TIME)
$(ROBOT_DIR)	$(TIME.YEAR)
$(TMP_DIR)

 

Consulting - the three fundamentals of a Newtest Robot

Make management of your fleet of robots easier:

What is this about?
Scenarios are developed on the NTBR workstation, which has certain technical characteristics and certain settings for its OS as well as for the applications used. To avoid wasting time “porting” a scenario to robots in production, you must make sure each of the robots in your fleet is as similar as possible to the NTBR station. This is true of the applications used, so that they behave the same way from one machine to the next, and equally so for display properties. The display must be identical for all of the machines because two of the most frequently used functions of the Newtest Basic programming language -- WaitSearchBitmap() and WaitAppStrOCR() -- rely on these characteristics.

How?
Designate a reference machine whose operating system and display properties will serve as a reference in order to facilitate distribution of scenarios based on the Windows and Java client environments.
Below is a reference list that you may wish to implement. You can determine and note, among other characteristics, the screen resolution (pixels height x width) and the color quality, as well as other display properties that should be taken into account.

Newtest scenarios & IT product management
What is this about?

Easy maintenance
Greater responsiveness / proactivity in production  - alerting
Review, monitoring of evolution. Pertinence and stability of the indicator delivered.

How?
Operation book comprising specifications:

- type of indicator to supply: Business/Application/Transaction, assessed
- synopsis, measurements to make, alarms to issue
- scheduling of executions
- location on the corporate network (Location)

To keep track of changes in scenario versions resulting either from upgrades of the application or changes in media (browser version upgrade from IE6 to IE7, switch from a fat client to a thin client, etc.)
During a review this document is an excellent aid to analysis for determining the changes that the service in question underwent, its version number, its user-friendliness, its perceived performance, and more.

Spotlight on Newtest alarms
What is this about?
The robot provides consistent, real and serious alarms to the target audience, control room, and the people in charge of product oversight.

How?
When the specifications are drawn up for a scenario, the physical or logical “technical element” involved in each determinant step of the scenario must be identified, with assistance from the application manager, in order to display this information clearly when configuring the “alarm message”.
In this way, the control room team will have “technical information” even without necessarily having a synopsis of the scenario. They will be able to correlate it with the results provided by low-level technical tools, and thus match up end-user data (Newtest) with their infrastructure components.
Offers the possibility of measuring the impact of infrastructure anomalies on the end user’s computer.