best way to select menu command on PC SUT?

Eggplant Functional
1

Is this the best way to select menu commands on a PC SUT?

http://www.redstonesoftware.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=13&highlight=menu+commands

Or is there a better way?

I have tried command keys if they are available on the menu and multiple captures and clicks but I am trying to find the most reliable method.

Thanks,

Teletubby

2

The approach outlined in the post that you referred to is really only needed when you’re trying to add images or steps in the middle of a script. So, for example, you already have an image of the Edit menu, but now you want to add an image of the Cut menu option. In that case you would click open the menu in Live Mode, and then use the Live/Capture toggle key (command by default) to switch to Capture Mode so you can select and capture the menu option. As noted, this technique is also sometimes needed on systems (like OS9) where the menus don’t remain popped open for very long.

But, generally the best way to capture menus on a PC SUT is to just capture them in the course of normal scripting the way you would anything else. There’s not really any special technique or shortcut that makes capturing menus any different from capturing buttons or any other UI elements. As you mentioned, you can always script the keyboard shortcuts – you could even put each one in it’s own script that you could call by name. So you could have a script called Cut that looked like this:

TypeText “\cx\C”

and others for Copy, Paste, and anything else with a keyboard sequence. Other approaches (like all of them in a single script) would also work.

I hope this helps.

3

Matt,

Can you go into a bit more detail on what this means:

"in the course of normal scripting the way you would anything else. "

Does that mean capture the menu selection in “live” mode or what.

Thanks,

Teletubby

4

Matt means by
“in the course of normal scripting the way you would anything else”

that you would go into “Capture Mode” and select the menu selection.

It is treated like any other image that you can capture and perform a script command on.

Hope this helps!

Nancy

5

Nancy,

Thanks for the reply.

"that you would go into “Capture Mode” and select the menu selection.

It is treated like any other image that you can capture and perform a script command on. "

So I make two Captures one capture single click to define and select the proper menu, and one capture single click cto define and select the proper menu option?

Please let me know,

Teletubby

6

So, I’m back from vacation and ready to offer some further clarification:

Here’s the sequence for capturing your selected menu item, assuming that you a) are actually generating a script that incorporates this menu sequence and b) you haven’t previously captured any of the images.

  1. Enter capture mode.
  2. Using the capture area, select the top level menu text and click the “Click” button on the toolbar. Name and save your image.
  3. Again using the capture area, select the submenu item that you want to capture in a highlighted state. Click the “Move To” toolbar button. Name and save your image. At the end of this step, the mouse will be over the submenu item and it will be selected.
  4. Without changing the capture area, click the “Click” button on the toolbar. Name and save your selected menu option image.

The above is what I mean when I say to capture the menus “normally”. Now, if all you want to do is capture a particular submenu item in a selected state, then you would use the technique that you asked about initially:

  1. In Live mode, select the menu item that you want to capture.
  2. Type the Command key to toggle into Capture mode.
  3. Use the capture area to select the menu item.
  4. Click the “Capture Image” button on the toolbar and name and save your image.

I hope this clarifies the process for you.