Release notes for Rational Functional Tester 9.2 and 9.2.0.1

This document contains information about new features, system requirements, and known limitations in IBM® Rational® Functional Tester.

Description

IBM Rational Functional Tester is an object-oriented automated testing tool that tests Java™, Dojo, HTML (including HTML-5), Ajax, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft .NET, Microsoft Silverlight, Microsoft Visual Basic, SAP, Siebel, Flex, GEF, and PowerBuilder applications. With its ability to test HTML 5-based applications, Rational Functional Tester 9.2 also tests the user interface of Web applications on the desktop and on mobile devices. You can test HTML 5-based applications by switching to the Test Workbench perspective.

With the Functional Test perspective, you can also test Adobe PDF documents. You can test IBM zSeries, IBM iSeries, IBM pSeries, and mainframe applications by using the terminal emulator that is packaged with Rational Functional Tester.

With the Test Workbench perspective, you can test HTML 5-based applications and HTML 5-based UI frameworks, such as Dojo Mobile and JQuery UI. You can also import and work with Selenium tests, and combine tests of various types into compound tests.

Rational Functional Tester is available in two integrated development environments: Eclipse and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET. The Eclipse integration supports both Java and simplified (non-programming) method of scripting while the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET integration supports Microsoft Visual Basic .NET scripting language.

Note: The ability to test HTML 5-based applications is available in the Eclipse environment, but not in the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET environment.

To view the list of domains, software, and platforms that are supported for functional testing and the compatible versions of Rational products that can be integrated with Rational Functional Tester, see Software Product Compatibility Reports.

In version 9.2, some of the older versions of software supported by Rational Functional Tester are deprecated. To view the list of deprecated software, see http://www.testworkbench-community.com/blogs/technology-currency-updates-for-rational-functional-tester-92.

What's new in version 9.2.0.1

  • Ability to run Web UI tests using Jenkins, Ant, and IBM UrbanCode Deploy as a non-root/Admin user. This removes a limitation where Web UI tests could not run using the Chrome browser on Linux and Mac OS,
  • Ability to change the default font, font style and font size used in the Rational Functional Tester UI. To make changes, click Configure > Configure applications for testing and click Font.
  • Improved performance when recording Web UI tests using the Chrome browser when HTTP recording is disabled. By default, HTTP recording is enabled. See Step 7 - Recorder Settings for details about disabling HTTP recording.
  • New option to greatly reduce the size of Web UI tests by removing the snapshots and hierarchies that are included with each test step. You can consider removing the snapshots and hierarchies when test development is complete and when you expect minimal changes to the test in the future. If you need to update the test, you can use the Guided Healing feature to recover the snapshots and hierarchies. See Updating a test with Guided Healing for details. To remove the snapshots and hierarchies, right-click the test in the Test Contents window and click Delete snapshots and hierarchies.
  • Improved integration of Appium mobile tests with the Perfecto mobile framework. Now, the preferred way to create Appuim tests is by using the Perfecto Lab plugin. (New > Project > Perfecto > Perfecto Lab Java Appium Project). Tests can be updated using the Perfecto Lab recording feature. These generated tests can be included and run in a Compound Test. A Perfecto report of each test execution can be displayed from the web analytics report. See Creating Appium Java tests for mobile applications.
  • Support for SAP GUI 7.5.
  • Support for Terminal emulator to connect to SSH-enabled servers using Cipher aes128-ctr.

What's new in version 9.2

  • Ability to do Web UI testing of HTML 5-based applications, by switching to the Test Workbench perspective in Rational Functional Tester. Prior to 9.2, this capability was available in Rational Test Workbench Web UI Tester. See The Test Workbench perspective.
  • Ability to test mobile web applications on mobile devices by switching to the Test Workbench perspective. This is another capability that was previously available in Rational Test Workbench Web UI Tester. See Mobile testing overview. You can also perform mobile application testing using the Appium test automation framework. You can run JUnit Appium tests in an Appium framework or in a Perfecto cloud environment. See Working with Selenium or Appium tests.
  • Support for HTML 5 input types with Safari 11 on Mac OS, while using the Test Workbench perspective.
  • Ability to create, annotate, and run functional test scripts using Cucumber. See Testing with Cucumber.
  • Support for guided healing. This feature allows you to easily fix existing Web UI tests that may have become broken due to changes in the layout or UI of the target web application. See Updating a test with guided healing.
  • Think time is now displayed as part of the action details in Mobile and Web UI report. Previously, think time was shown as a separate action.
  • Several Accelerated Functional Testing capabilities that were considered experimental in previous releases of Rational Test Workbench Web UI Tester are now incorporated into Rational Functional Tester 9.2 as fully-supported features. Now, the Web UI Experimental Features preferences page is visible by default without the need to set -Dwebui.experimental=true in the eclipse.ini file. See Accelerating the test effort with distributed testing.
  • Ability to keep the browser active after test playback of a Web UI test is complete. This feature allows you to continue recording at the point where playback finished without the need to re-record the earlier steps. (Google Chrome only). This feature was introduced in 9.1.1.1 at the experimental level. and is now a fully-supported feature. See Starting a new recording immediately after playback.
  • Ability to run Web UI tests as part of a Maven build. The ability to run functional tests from the Functional Test perspective is supported at the experimental level. See Testing with Maven.

Installing the product

To install Rational Functional Tester 9.2, first uninstall any previous installations of Rational Functional Tester. Then, use the Install procedure in IBM Installation Manager to install 9.2.

To install 9.2.0.1, first install 9.2 and use the Update procedure in IBM Installation Manager to update to the latest release. To roll back to 9.2, you must first uninstall 9.2.0.1 and then perform a fresh installation of 9.2.

Rational Functional Tester is available as a standalone product and is also included with Rational Test Workbench. You can use the same license key for each installation.

Installing .NET 2010 help

If you installed Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 .NET Integration, you must install Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 .NET help manually.

  1. After you install Rational Functional Tester Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 .NET Integration, open Rational Functional Tester, click Help and then click Manage Help Settings. This opens the Visual Studio Help Library Manager.
  2. Select the Install content from disk option.
  3. Click Browse and select the helpcontentsetup.msha file that is available by default in C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\HelpLibrary\VS2010\ . The help manifest files for other translations are found within the locale folders available in the VS2010 directory. Click Next.
  4. Select FT and click Add. The Update button is enabled.
  5. Click Update. You are prompted to confirm the installation. Click Yes. The Rational Functional Tester .NET help is installed as local help for Visual Studio 2010.
Note: To view the Rational Functional Tester .NET Scripting help in the Visual Studio 2010 IDE, you must enable the local help option in the Help Library Manager.

Tip: To view the complete table of contents of the installed local help in the Visual Studio 2010 IDE, install the Visual Studio Help Keyword Index plug-in that is available from the Microsoft website. Alternatively, you can upgrade to Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 to view help in the Microsoft Help Viewer.

Known limitations and workarounds

Known problems are documented in the fix list and download document. Select a fix list from http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27036170. From the fix list, you can view the download document for additional information.

Known problems are also documented in the form of individual technotes in the Support Knowledge Base at Troubleshooting documentation for Rational Functional Tester. As problems are discovered and resolved, the knowledge base is updated. By searching the knowledge base, you can quickly find workarounds or solutions to problems.

After playing back a script in Rational Functional Tester, a message such as the following is displayed in the console: "The IBM Class Sharing Adaptor will not work in this configuration. You are not running on a J9 Java VM.". This message is displayed because the version of Eclipse that is used in the IDE is from IBM and has the IBM Java optimizations enabled. To resolve the issue:

  1. Navigate to the Rational Functional Tester Plugins Shared Folder.
  2. Back up the com.ibm.cds plugin and delete it.
  3. Restart Rational Functional Tester.

Contacting IBM Software Support

IBM Software Support provides you with technical assistance.

For FAQs, lists of known problems and fixes, and other support information, visit the product support page for Rational Functional Tester software at http://www.ibm.com/software/awdtools/tester/functional/support/.

For product news, events, and other information, visit the product home page for Rational Functional Tester Software at http://www.ibm.com/software/awdtools/tester/functional/index.html.

Before you contact IBM Software Support, gather the background information that you need to describe your problem. When you are describing a problem to an IBM Software Support specialist, be as specific as possible and include all relevant background information so that the specialist can help you solve the problem efficiently. To save time, know the answers to these questions:

  • What software versions were you running when the problem occurred?
  • Do you have logs, traces, or messages that are related to the problem?
  • Can you reproduce the problem? If so, what steps do you take to reproduce it?
  • Is there a workaround for the problem? If so, be prepared to describe the workaround.
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