Having Problem Using Rational Functional Tester Verification Points Through VNC

[Corne Beerse]

Ruth Rothschild wrote:
> I am automating a test using Rational Functional Tester (RFT). The
> application that I'm testing is on a remote server that has VNCServer
> started. I am running RFT from a PC on which VNCviewer 4.1 is installed.  I
> am able to successfully bring up the VNCviewer and it shows the application
> I'm testing on the desktop. I am then able to  record a RFT script on that
> application with no problem (i.e., mouse clicks and keyboard actions are
> successfully recorded). However, when I try to add a data verification
> point to my test script during the script recording, the object finder hand
> only highlights the entire VNC window, rather than allowing me to highlight
> the actual application that is sitting on the VNC remote desktop. If I use
> RFT's image verification, it allows me to highlight the object I want to
> verify. However, because RFT's image verification is a strict
> pixel-to-pixel type of verification, I don't want to use this type of
> verification because it is way too stringent and unflexible for the
> application I'm testing.
>
> Is there something that can be set up or changed in VNC to allow objects on
> the remote desktop to be highlighted? I don't know if what I'm encountering
> is something that can be controlled or changed through VNC or has to be
> done through RFT. It seems to me that if RFT can successfully script mouse
> clicks and keyboard actions on the VNC remote desktop, it should also be
> able to allow an object finder to highlight objects on that desktop. So,
> I'm wondering if maybe VNC is preventing me from doing this and not RFT.
>   
Correct me if I'm wrong, my knowledge can be outdated (its about 10 
years old...)
The test tools does need access to the objects on the display. Hence, it 
needs to be able to read the text for example.
However, VNC only provides a pixel-image from the remote display: It is 
easy to take a picture or even record a movie with vnc. It does not 
provide access to the windows-elements that construct the picture.

The best thing you can do is install a test-agent (or the entire rft 
suite) on the remote machine so the tool can access the window objects.
An other idea is to have a look at other remote-display tools. If the 
remote machine is a unix machine, you can best use the X11 forwarding to 
a local installed X11 server. Then the objects are effectively locally 
available. If the remote machine is a msWindows machine, you might try 
remote-deskop. I have the impression that gives local access to the 
windows objects of the remote machine.


Success

CBee