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Suggestion on Databinding

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2016 9:16 am
by David Zita
Hi,
I don't expect direct answer from Ranorex team here, I'd rather see people's opinions on this.

I use Ranorex for a year now and it's great tool. When I develop my tests, I try to make it as modular as possible (so I can later add more tests to cover regression). So my current test case looks like this:
modules.png
That's great, but when I need to bind the values to the variables, it's pain in the ***, see
binding.png
I kind of understand why is it like that, however I think a simple enhancement could make it much clearer. That is to control the binding from the side of module (or better say an instance of a module). Currently you define on the side of test case variable to which module variable it is bound. But why don't define on the side of module variables which test case variables will be used? Internaly nothing would change, it's just better user experience. I have drawn a simple button in the modules.png. A simple window would appear with a table of two columns, one with the module variable names, and one with values where you could either directly write a value or choose from test case variables.

What do you, users of Ranorex, think? Please, let me know. Thank you.

Re: Suggestion on Databinding

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2016 9:48 am
by odklizec
Hi,

If I may suggest something, use the same name for module variables and data connectors whenever possible, so then you can use Auto-Bind functionality. This will greatly improve your workflow and make your life much easier ;) Of course, this may not work for 100% cases. But it would definitely make the binding process easier for you.

Re: Suggestion on Databinding

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2016 9:55 am
by David Zita
I do that, but as you said, it's not possible all the time. In simple cases the binding is not a problem, but when you get to more complicated case, it becomes less and less obvious of what is bound to what. Imagine that I would need to hand over my tests to someone else. And he would want to know, what 5 variables are bound to particular test module. He would need to check every single drop-down menu and look for the test module. And don't forget there are some of them used several times, so he needs to check the index also ... It's really not handy

Re: Suggestion on Databinding

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2016 10:29 am
by odklizec
Yeah, I agree that the binding process is not particularly easy and straightforward with more complex scenarios ;) Anyway, Ranorex folks currently collect feature requests only via email. I personally think it would be better to have a "Feature Requests" category also here at forum and maybe even with polling, so people could add their vote for this or that feature request ;)

Re: Suggestion on Databinding

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2016 10:51 am
by David Zita
Yeah, that's sort of what I was hoping for. To have a thread with some feedback from the community and then I would send a suggestion via email with a link to this thread.
Btw, another 'great' thing about the current way of databinding is when you copy some module instance with already bound variables. The copied module has the same variables bound and if you want to change them, you need to first find the currently bound variables, unbind them and then bind them with desired connectors. Really cool! :)

Re: Suggestion on Databinding

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2016 12:43 pm
by odklizec
If you mean that the binded variables stay binded even after copy&paste of module to another TC (with the same data connectors), I think it's a feature and I would say it's (usually) a good one! At least I'm happy with it in 99.9 cases ;) You can always use "Clear Binding" to remove unwanted bindings?

Re: Suggestion on Databinding

Posted: Thu Nov 24, 2016 1:39 pm
by David Zita
If anyone agrees with this, please support my suggestion here http://uservoice.ranorex.com/forums/150 ... binding-ui
Thanks.