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Deal with a Simulated Object

Sample Application

The color box of Microsoft's Paint utility is a compound object that contains color tiles surrounded by a containing box. To understand this completely, start mspaint.exe from Rapise.

Steps:

  1. Open a new test in Rapise.
  2. Press the Record button on the application bar.

  3. When the Select an Application to Record dialog appears, select the Run Application tab. Enter mspaint in the Full path to application edit box. Press the Run button.

    If you are unfamiliar with MS Paint, take a few minutes to play with it. In particular, notice the color selection box that appears on the upper-right of the application window.

    mspaint

  4. Press Ctrl+5 to spy on the UI. Then, press Ctrl+G to spy on the Paint application. Notice the following behaviors of the MS Paint application under the Object Spy:

    1. As you move the mouse inside the color box, the entire surrounding box will display a red highlight but the individual color tiles will not.
    2. Properties of the color box control do not provide clues for finding a particular color.

This combination makes it impossible for Rapise to identify and learn colors as integral objects.

Rapise can be taught to interact with the color box by "simulating" it.

In fact, Rapise will recognize these non-objects without you needing to take any specific action. Let's explore what this means:

  1. Open a new test in Rapise and name it MSPaint.
  2. Press the Record button on the application bar.
  3. When the Select an Application to Record dialog appears, clear all selection boxes in the library list. You may need to scroll this section of the dialog box to ensure all selections are cleared. We are choosing not to load any libraries so that Rapise cannot "cheat" by automatically recognizing objects on the screen.
  4. Select the Run Application tab. In the Full path to application edit box, enter mspaint. Then, press the Run button. > Note: Applications that reside in C:\windows\system32 can be started by their names because C:\windows\system32 are typically included in the system path.
  5. When the Recording Activity dialog appears, press Learn (Ctrl+2).
  6. Perform a few simple actions in Paint. For example:
    1. Click the red color in the palette.
    2. Click the green color in the palette.
    3. Click the blue color in the palette.

  7. Examine the Recording Activity dialog grid. It should resemble the following:

    simulatedpaint

    Notice that the three clicks within the color box were recorded as simulated objects.

  8. Press Ctrl+3 to end the recording.

See Also