By using a table in a database, we are able to dynamically change (overload) Expected Values (Hoorah!). However, when it comes to changing the values of the xml file called *.uitest which contains the search and find values to find elements on a page, this does not seem to be an option. Most developers I know have been using a manual technique. We cannot fire a seperate instance of recorder and have it step through the process to fire off another recorder to implement the tasks that we need. We cannot pass a C# variable into the xml inner text fields to make the find/search more dynamic.

The best solution I have found and I am currently working on is a test set that collects the data I need from a database and re-writes the *.uitest files to accomodate changing of domains or web paths. The changing of sessionIDs which are stored in URLs, Application variables that are stored in URLs, etc. The system appears to be designed to statically test 1 given page, on one server or web dom. If you want to achieve this, you have to change the values, recompile the tests and setup the run again. Even worse, there are no plugins or API to work with to make this process more dynamic.

This is a great concept and I got behind it with my company and got all the teams on board with it, but I am finding it to be shall we say, too much in it's infancy. Furthermore, I don't see a lot of support on these sites for "HOW TO's" to help you figure out how to do these things. You have a great idea, but no sign of improvement based on requests I have seen. In fact, I see more rejections than anything.

Here is my specific request:
I am interested in being able to programmatically call Test builder to iterate through a web page and collect document elements and recording them into a UIMap. I have attempted a multiple instance of VS having one click through the process to enable the recorder, but when I get to this point, the recorder refuses to fire a second instance. I can understand why, but if I really need a way to do something of this nature. Basically, our system creates a UIMap that is empty, then populates it, but it cannot complete the process of the .cs map and .designer.cs map and provide the content to touch the elements int eh document DOM. The only way we figure we can do this is by forcing the recorder to record the steps. We know what elements we want, but again cannot perform the record to fill in the missing data in the missing UIMap files.