The LabVIEW UI Automation Tool is an application that allows user to track operations, add validation criteria, replay the tracks and validate each criteria with UI Panel of a LabVIEW project.
This tool can be typically used for automatically testing with "VI based UI".
Quick Video Demo
System Requirement
Installer: LabVIEW is not a requirement to install this tool. However,LabVIEW is needed to use this tool: some VIs are dynamically called by LabVIEW on running of this application, and this tool is developed for VI based UI.
LabVIEW Version: 2012 is OK. For the later version, automatical mass compiling will be executed on the first run of this tool.
OS Platform: limited to Windows OS, due to some Windows APIs used.
Find the application in the Install_dir (.../National Instruments/UI Automation by default).
How to Use LabVIEW UI Automation Tool
Using LabVIEW UI Automation Record Part
Complete the following steps to launch the tool.
Launch LabVIEW UI Automation Record.exe.
Launch LabVIEW and confirm TCP/IP connection to VI Server is enabled, otherwise a connection error will display on the titlebar.
Once the connection to VI Server is ready, the status LED will stop blinking and change to green.
Open a lvproj file you want to track, click "Refresh" button to get a list for available projects and specify one of the projects in the combo box.
Execute the top VI, which should be a continuous running VI (we call it Testing VI. i.e. Expense UI.vi in the shipped example "ExpenseDemo" in the following shortscreen).
When the front panel of this VI is activated, the Record application will catch it and display the running state of the testing VI on the title bar, as shown in the following screenshot.
Click "Record" button to start tracking your actions.
Add validation criterias. Two kinds of criterials are supported, as shown below:
Click "+ Custom" button to add a custom VI, which can be created from a template shipped in Install_dir/Templates folder.
Click and Drag "+ Basic" button to any controls on the Testing VI to add basic criteria for their properties. (details demo in the attached video)
On completing the record, click "Stop" button to save tracking records to a dat file as well as a XML file.
Using LabVIEW UI Automation Replay Part
Launch LabVIEW UI Automation Replay.exe.
Specify the XML file logged from Record application.
If both of the connection to VI server and the log file are ready, the status LED turns green and "Replay" button gets enabled as shown in the following screenshot.
Click "Replay" button and the application will go through the actions sequences according to the log file .
Check the results on different pages of the Tab Control, on completing replaying
RawData page lists all the actions and validators.
Summary page displays stastics for records result and user comments.
Results page classifies results in a tree. You can double-click each item in the tree to navigate to the corresponding contols or custom VIs.
Pretty cool! This would enable us to automate manual test easily.
This is just my 2 cents, I have mentioned my feedback as following:
1. change the action event time
I tried to edit .xml/.dat file which is generated by this toolkit because I want to change the action event time. For example, I simulate "push 2 buttons at (almost) the same time". The reason is "push 2 buttons at (almost) the same time" behavior would be needed for ECU testing.
2.Report Generation
Validation point is cool functionality, and we can see the result on the "UI Automation Window". It must be better to generate the result report, I prefer the simple format like .csv. (Of course, we can avoild this issue to implement report functionaly in the original vi.)