Track by recording

When you record test steps in Ranorex Studio, UI elements are automatically tracked and therefore identified as you perform actions on them. This is tracking by recording. If you’ve read through the chapters in Ranorex Studio fundamentals, you should already be familiar with this method. We’ll take a quick look at it again on this page by way of a simple example.

In this chapter

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    Screencast

    The screencast “track by recording” walks you through the information found in this chapter.:

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    Test example definition

    To explain tracking by recording, we’ll record a click on a UI element in the Test database of the Ranorex Studio Demo Application.

    Track by recording - test example definition

    The Test database tab in the demo application.
    The test database working environment.

    Track by recording

    Now let’s see how tracking by recording actually works.

    Start the demo application and click the Test database tab.
    Start Ranorex Studio and create a new blank solution.

    Open the default recording module and click RECORD.
    Ranorex Studio disappears and the Recorder control center appears, indicating an active recording.

    Start instant recording of demo application

    In the Test database tab, click the Female radio button.

    Track a radio button in the demo application

    Click Stop in the Recorder control center.

    Results

    Once you’ve stopped recording, Ranorex Studio displays the recording module view with the actions table and the current repository.

    Track by recording - action list

    Mouse click action linked to the repository item RdbFemale that represents the Female radio button.

    Track by recording - repository

    The repository contains the repository item RdbFemale. This repository item represents the Female radio button and is the result of the tracking process.

    The RanoreXPath of the repository item. This path identifies the position of the UI element in the AUT’s UI.

    Tracking mechanism for tracking by recording

    • While recording, Ranorex Studio monitors user interactions with the UI and automatically tracks UI elements.
    • When a user interaction occurs, Ranorex Studio identifies the targeted UI element and stores it as a repository item, which is a representation of the UI element.
    • Usually, one repository item represents one UI element.
    • Ranorex Studio recognizes when a UI element is used more than once and then reuses the corresponding repository item.