Basic and Smart Actions

An action is an individual activity performed by a module. In Ranorex, there are two groups of actions: basic actions and smart actions.

• Basic actions represent direct user input, such as mouse clicks or keyboard input.
• Smart actions represent more complex input or special functions, such as running an application, opening a browser, or performing a validation.

Screencast: The screencast Introduction to actions walks you through the concepts in this article.

This article provides a high-level overview of action types. For details on working with actions in the actions table, please take a look at Manage actions and Action properties. To learn how actions connect to repository items, see Actions and repository items.

Basic actions represent direct user input with or on a device, such as mouse clicks or keyboard input. These actions are automatically recorded when you perform them during a recording, but you can also add them manually in the actions table.

The table below lists the icon and name of each basic action. For more details about each basic action, see Action properties.

	Mouse
	Mouse wheel
	Touch
	Swipe gesture
	Key shortcut
	Key sequence
	Mobile key press

	Validation
	Invoke action
	Get value
	Set value
	Open browser
	Run application
	Run mobile application
	Deploy Android app
	Deploy iOS app
	Set device orientation
	Close application
	Wait for
	Log message
	Capture screenshot
	Create snapshot
	Separator
	Delay
	User code

Actions are managed in the actions table in the Recorder view. The actions table shows all actions in a recording module in the order in which they will be executed.

Note: Actions are always listed chronologically in the actions table. For example, action #4 is executed before action #5.