Feature request: default values for KeyHoldTime and TimeBetweenKeypresses

Hello Paul,

I am sorry to hear about this behavior and the need to increase the default keyboard actions time for multiple steps. I have created feature requests on your behalf regarding both topics. The links to those you can find here and here, where you can add additional comments and vote for those feature requests.

It seems to me that both topics are related, because the way ClearCurrentText works, is by pressing the keyboard Backspace key the number of times that are necessary to clear the text. The KeyHoldTime and TimeBetweenKeyresses for this action is fixed and I assume that you are hitting similar issue as the input text. 

Please consider providing temporary access to the application under test, so we can explore and debug this behavior on our end. That could help us better understand what is happening and if there is a better way to go about this behavior. You can open a private support ticket to provide us information about the Silverlight application under test and we can continue our discussion there.

Thank you for the provided information so far and for your understanding. 

Regards,
Plamen Mitrev
Progress Telerik

Good morning,

thank you very much.   I also thought that a fixed time is set when pressing the Backspace key.

The problem with the timing depends on the speed of the PC. The testing will run on an VM on our build server. Actually i'm developing on a VM. On my new PC next week it should run better than on my current (slower then VM) - but the test run will be still on a VM.
Speed problems will be gone in about a year when we switch from Silverlight to Blazor. I hope.

Best regards,
Paul

Hi Paul,

I understand that the execution issues due to slower virtual machine and the configurations for keyboard actions will continue on the execution VM. We will investigate the opened public items and evaluate them. That said, I am interested to know what will be the behavior of local execution on your new PC (faster) after several day. This additional information will be helpful for us and the engineering team.

The migration process to newer technology can take some time and I hope it will be well worth it for you and the users of the application. We have built in translators for Blazor controls in Test Studio, which should make the automation easy and reliable.

Thank you for your understanding and feedback. It is great to hear back from the users!

Regards,
Plamen Mitrev
Progress Telerik

Yes. I also have the problem on my actual PC (i5 from 2015/16). It works better on the VM. I don't have to increase the keystroke times there as much as on my PC. But I have to.

On another PC (actual Intel i7) it ran with 100 + 10 ms without any problems.  I noticed that the CPU load plays a big role. I.e. Silverlight application + high CPU load = problems with keypress inputs. The general execution speed of tests is much faster than on my PC or VM.

So you should also get the problem if you have a Silverlight application + the CPU load e.g. increases to 80-90% by something. Keystrokes are then definitely lost if the standard values of 100 + 10 are entered.   Enabling of "Highlight Element" increases the chances to lost keystrokes  ;)

An Option/Checkbox  (default active) "Verify entry" would be nice - actually we are manuelly checking the entered value with another test step + IF.

Is it not possible to check every entered value while typing?  New Checkbox "Type as fast as possible" -> Time-Values disabled, when activated -> TTS is entering + checking the actual value.

Pressing "T" -> Waiting for value "T" in entry field.  Than typing next char and waiting for change of the entry field..and so on.
This would make the timing values obsolete + the eneterd value would be always 100% correct.

Like:
Type in "T" -> Wait for entry field is = "T"
Type in "e" -> Wait for entry field is = "Te"
Type in "s" -> Wait for entry field is = "Tes"
Type in "t" -> Wait for entry field is = "Test"

Hi Paul,

Thank you for your follow up and suggestions on possible optimization of the typing process in Silverlight applications.

It is certainly possible to add verifications for the field text after each character input, but I am not sure if that is the best option here. As you can imagine, this will increase the execution speed of all tests that enter text by a great amount. Our engineering team will conduct an investigation and try to find a solution that has a positive impact on the execution, without any significant performance reduction.

I searched through other discussions and tickets for Silverlight application and this issue does not seem to be common one. It could be specific for some applications and knowing that you are in active process of migration to newer technology, I assume this issue will be resolved. We have a few Silverlight sample applications on our end, but those do not reproduce the issues with text typing. If you could provide a sample application that reproduces the issue, we can debug it and analyze it further.

Thank you for your continuous cooperation and shared ideas.

Regards,
Plamen Mitrev
Progress Telerik

Maybe it have to do with the Telerik Controls we are using in our silverlight application.  An sample is not possible, because this is our main application and theese needs a specific database.

This problem accours only on slower PCs. On actual i5/i7 it run's ok.  My older PC has an base (idle) CPU usage of 40..60%.  The higher the workload, the more often there are dropouts.  After closing of all applications and closing some tasks the idle CPU usage goes down to about 20-30% and tests are running almost error free.

Have you tested with high CPU load too?  Running e.g. Prime95 tool or similar.
The error mainly occurs in recorder mode. I.e. not just during a test run, but while you are connected to the recorder for a test. That's why I also mentioned that the frequency of incorrect entries increases when the "highlight element" is activated.

This is also the reason why I asked for a global setting for the whole project in order to be able to increase the value during the development of a test. After completing a test, the time values can be reduced globally for all entries. Currently my high values remain, since the effort is extremely to set all down manually.
A global value could be also used to determine the optimal value (maybe lower then 100+10) for the build server on the VM, so that the tests run as quickly as possible.


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An Checkbox like "Verify entry" in the properties Tab would be nice too.  The actual loss of key presses is an TTS sided problem. The app itself can have issues which makes problems with typing. This is why we are using a test software. Not only to enter something, but also to verify the entry. Actually we are doing this for several fields (IF for field after entry), which makes a lot of work.  If there is an bug like clearing a field on LostFocus of the field, you actually have to check every of the entries with an IF manually.

TTS does not currently check any entry for correctness. E.g. TTS don't care whether the field is currently enabled or not. The test step is displayed as executed correctly in the test, although nothing has been entered. You have to check all things manualy by now. On fields which can be disabled an IF() whether it is active and after entry if the value is correct.

After a successful test run (only green checks visible) we currently have to check whether TTS has really done everything correctly and then install additional IF's at the appropriate points.

I've recorded the problem on the VM. Created tiny test with two text boxes. Executing the test steps three times - with three different results - and then with increased time values:

https://youtu.be/k9z0z_5r75Y

Hi Paul,

Thank you for sharing a video of the misbehavior and further more details about your environment. Those will certainly be helpful for our team during the evaluation and investigation process. I linked this thread internally to the feature requests from before.

As you mentioned, the "Verify entry" property can be helpful to ensure that the entered text is the one you needed to enter. This is something that we don't expect to have troubles within the first place and that is the reason this is not added. That said, this can be handled in different ways, for more details check below suggestions.

• One solution will be to resolve the issue, where text is not entered correctly due to low performance machine or specifics in the application under test. So far we have learned that there are no troubles on faster machines and this issue is hard to reproduce on our end. If you could share temporary access to the application we can debug this issue and explore it further.
• You can validate the entered text by checking if the application performed as expected further in the test scenario. For example, verify if the end result is a success or that you see the expected value in the application. I understand that this might not be applicable for all situations and I am not familiar with those and the tested application.
• The annotation and highlight element feature use additional resources from the machine and those features are designed to help you during the recording and troubleshooting of the test. You can do that on a more powerful machine and use the slower machines for test or test list execution without annotations. I believe this should improve the performance and the overall behavior.

Please add your vote to the feature requests to increase their importance for the next roadmap planning. You can also follow them to get notifications for any progress and comments there. For your convenience I will link them here and here.

Of course, if you have any follow up questions or concerns, do not hesitate to contact us again. We appreciate your feedback and ideas for our product. Thank you!

Regards,
Plamen Mitrev
Progress Telerik