What is Ranorex? Is this a medicine? 🙂

Ranorex is an automated testing tool which provides testing of Microsoft desktop apps, webpages and mobile applications. It supports wide range of technologies like .NET, WFA, WPF, Java, HTML5, Flash, iOS, Android, Windows apps (hybrid and native) and so on. You can perform cross-browser, data-driven, automated functional, regression, automated GUI and keyword-driver testing. The Ranorex software pack can be classified into a few big parts. Ranorex Studio is the main section. Ranorex Studio contains the main tools like Ranorex Recorder, Ranorex Repository and RanoreXPath. In this post we will introduce them generally in different sections.

Ranorex Studio

Ranorex Studio is the heart of the Ranorex ecosystem. If you are familiar with Microsoft’s Visual Studio you will know immediately how to use it. It has the same layout like Visual Studio 2008/2010.

Main view of the Ranorex studio
Main view of the Ranorex studio

There is a Projects view (1) for your Ranorex projects. Ranorex projects contains modules. The modules can be Code Modules or Recording Modules. Ranorex Module Browser (2) is created to manage all these modules into groups to make them more reusable. The recorded or coded modules can be represented in the File view (3).

Ranorex Recorder

The recorder is used for record and replay the user’s keyboard and mouse actions on the manually executed manipulations on the desired software and user interface. During recording the user can define validations for the UI elements’ properties like the textual content of elements or the visibility state of them, etc.

Ranorex Repository

Ranorex Repository is basically a mapping between the user interface elements and Ranorex test automation framework. The repository elements can be linked to various types of actions like mouse click, entering key sequence or even more complex actions. The separation of objects and the business logic of the test cases comes with the benefit of reduce maintenance effort. In Ranorex Studio the repository is presented with a table with two columns, where the left side contains logical name of elements and the right side contains RanoreXpath value of the elements. The Ranorex repository is stored in a separate XML file and it can be opened and edited with every XML viewer. This provides the possibility to use version control system, when you are working in team.

RanoreXPath

RanoreXpath is based on the XPath expressions. It doesn’t have any special syntax, so if you are familiar with XPath you won’t have any problems using this tool. The RanoreXPath is also used for desktop and mobile applications and not only for the webpages.

Create your first basic test case with RanoreXPath recorder

Start your already installed Ranorex Studio and click on “New test solution” on your welcome screen. Enter a name for you test solution and click on “Create”. You will have one auto-generated recording file “Recording1.rxrec”. We will start to fill out this file with actions.
As an example for creating a new test case with recorder we will use website w3schools online editor, http://www.w3schools.com/html/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_basic. First step is to install browser extension to connect desired browser with the Ranorex Studio. Clicking on the “Tools / Instrumentation Wizard” from menu bar the wizard will be presented where you can choose your desired browser. Go through the wizard, and you will be ready to provide your first recording.
When everything is set up we can start with recording. Double click on your “Recording1.rxrec” file from the “Projects” view. Click on “Record” button and select “Web”. Copy and paste the w3schools link above, and choose your browser where you have already installed Ranorex plugin. By clicking on the “Ok” button the desired browser will start with the entered URL. You can provide your actions and validations.

We will introduce this with the next scenario:

  1. Wait for page to load
  2. Edit the HTML code on the left side
  3. Remove the text row from body and enter your custom text (e.g. “My first text.”)
  4. Click on the “See Result” button on the top
  5. Validate that the text was changed on the right side

 

We will explain the validation step, because other steps are ordinary. When you have all set up for validation, just click on the “Validate” button on the Ranorex Recorder window on the right bottom corner of your screen.

Ranorex Recorder validation
Ranorex Recorder validation

Click on the element on the webpage what you want to validate. A window will appear with the DOM (Document Object Model) table and with the details of chosen element. After clicking on the “Next” button you will see all of the available attributes of the chosen element. You can select which attribute will be validated. Clicking on “OK” button the validation will be recorded. You can click on the “Stop” button on the Ranorex Recorder and you are finished with your first recording. You can play it back by clicking on the “Play” button in the Ranorex Studio.

Conclusion

Ranorex software package is easy to use and it also can be learned easily. The recording function is working really well and with it everyone can start testing quickly. There are some situation where the recorder function is not enough to handle the validations and interaction on the webpages. The Coding Module is here to help us out in these situations. We will introduce it in our next post.

Are you interested? Check it here.

Stay tuned.
Thanks for reading.

Similar Posts from the author:

6 thoughts to “Ranorex – is this tool the tester heaven?

  • angella

    I personally do not recommend ranorex as it is not stable at all. Tests sometimes run and find the ui elements and sometimes do not!!! It is a waste of money.

  • angella

    I personally do not recommend ranorex as it is not stable at all. Tests sometimes run and find the ui elements and sometimes do not!!! It is a waste of money.

  • Sandra Hall

    Have you tried ZAPTEST? They have a free edition.

  • Sandra Hall

    Have you tried ZAPTEST? They have a free edition.

  • Gwen McCormick

    I’m amazed, I have to admit. I come across a
    blog that’s both educative and entertaining, and let me tell you, you have hit the nail on the head.
    Now I’m very happy I found this during my search.

  • Gwen McCormick

    I’m amazed, I have to admit. I come across a
    blog that’s both educative and entertaining, and let me tell you, you have hit the nail on the head.
    Now I’m very happy I found this during my search.

Comments are closed.