FR: possibilty to manually create (recreate) screenshots

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odklizec
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FR: possibilty to manually create (recreate) screenshots

Post by odklizec » Wed Apr 10, 2013 9:00 am

Hi,

Since the first day with Ranorex, I miss the possibility to manually create (recreate) screenshots for the recorded/manually added scenario steps.

When using Recorder, most steps are recorded with the GUI screenshots. However, when the AUT GUI is changed, the screenshots often become obsolete. Additionally, there is currently no way to create screenshots for manually added steps.

I personally think that the GUI screenshots are very useful for better understandability of the recorded scenarios (mainly for novice Ranorex users/operators) and makes the scenarios easier to edit. Would it be possible to add such feature on the internal feature wish list? Thanks in advance!
Pavel Kudrys
Ranorex explorer at Descartes Systems

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Re: FR: possibilty to manually create (recreate) screenshots

Post by Support Team » Thu Apr 11, 2013 4:31 pm

Hi,

This is a good idea, and we have already discussed such a feature, but we are not totally sure how this should be done. How the screenshots should be updated respectively of which elements, region in the application, the screenshot should be created from.
Could you maybe share your thoughts, ideas how this should be done from your point of view?
Where would you take the screenshots from?

This would be of great help :)!

Thanks,
Markus

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Re: FR: possibilty to manually create (recreate) screenshots

Post by odklizec » Fri Apr 12, 2013 8:56 am

Hi Markus,

I thought about some kind of auto re-generation of the screenshots, but not automatically per entire scenario, but just in selected scenario steps. It may be not necessary or desired to regenerate all scenario screenshots. From my personal experience, I need to refresh only certain screenshots.

Basically, it could work by combining the "Highlight Selected Repository Item" tool and repository element path. If user activates the "Refresh screenshot" button, the refresh tool should check the availability of the element, using its repository path. If not found, no new screenshot should be captured (possibly with an info about missing/unavailable element). If found, the element should be highlighted and new screenshot should be captured, as is done during the recording phase (i.e. screenshot contains a highlighted element inside its parent).

If the automatic refresh (without user interaction) proves to be too difficult to make it error prone, I would suggest to add a simple "Capture New Screenshot" button. This tool should activate the adapted "Track" tool, which would not change the repository path of the selected element, but only highlight the selected GUI element and capture its screenshot. Screenshot should contain the parent window of the selected element and highlighted selected element.

Another possibility (probably least difficult to implement), would be to activate some kind of region-based screenshot tool. Once active, user should draw a rectangle over the GUI. After releasing the mouse, the portion of screen under the drawn rectangle should be used as a new screenshot. The drawback of this solution would be no highlight rectangle around the desired element.

On the other hand, with region based tool, user can generate a screenshot of just the necessary area of the GUI. So maybe it would be nice to have two "Screenshot Refresh" buttons? Automatic - using one of the above two described automatic options and Manual - using the region based option.

Hope this helps? Feel free to contact me in case of more questions ;)
Pavel Kudrys
Ranorex explorer at Descartes Systems

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Re: FR: possibilty to manually create (recreate) screenshots

Post by Support Team » Mon Apr 15, 2013 2:36 pm

Hi,

Thanks for all the suggestions, they will help us a lot :).

Regards,
Markus