T-Plan Robot Enterprise 4.3.1 Preferences Window
Contents
1. Preferences Window Overview
2. Preference Categories
3. Setting Preferences
1. Preferences Window Overview
Preferences window provides access to T-Plan Robot Enterprise configuration. To
open the window select Edit ->
Preferences in the main GUI menu. Many T-Plan Robot Enterprise components
also provide a quick access to their configuration in context menus,
for example customized command editor
popup menus or status bar popup menu.
The window consists of the following components:
- The Preference Tree is situated on the left. It
represents a hierarchical structure of preferences organized by
topics and T-Plan Robot Enterprise configurable objects. See the following
chapter called Preference Categories for more.
- The Search field allows to search all dialog panels
for the specified keyword.
- The "Show preference details tool tip" check box makes the
window display internal properties for a preference, such as its
key (ID) in the configuration file, the value type with optional
list of acceptable values and the current stored value. To get
it displayed set on the check box and hover the mouse pointer
over the preference.
This functionality maps config file preference keys and raw
values to their visual representation in the Preferences window. It is
intended to help those who either customize the configuration
file manually or programmatically. See the Setting
Preferences chapter for details.
- The Preference Panel displays preferences
(configuration values) for the selected tree node. Each
preference is represented by a graphical component, for example
by a labeled text field, and generally allows to edit the
preference value.
- The Previous and Next
buttons store the preference browsing history and navigate to
the previous/next viewed panel (tree node).
- The OK button closes the window and saves the
preference changes to the configuration file in the file system.
The Cancel button
closes the window and discards all the changes.
The preference values are loaded from the user configuration file when the application starts
and they are held in the memory until it gets closed or an explicit
save action is invoked (for example by this window). When
T-Plan Robot Enterprise is installed to a clean machine, the tool initially
loads the default preference file bundled with the product binaries
and saves it to the <user_home>/tplanrobot.cfg
file. See the T-Plan Robot Enterprise Text
And Data File List manual for the file details.
Be aware that there is no configuration file synchronization or
lock mechanism. It means that if you run multiple instances of the
tool on a single machine under one user, the file will be
overwritten without checking whether another instance has changed
it in between.
2. Preference Categories
The Preference Tree
component organizes preference values into groups. A single tree
node is usually associated with one particular object. Preferences
are currently divided into four major categories:
- Appearance
& Accessibility group contains preferences which
affect GUI appearance and behavior.
The Menu & Tool Bar node
allows
to configure shortcut keys (hot keys) for often used the menu
items. See also the T-Plan Robot Enterprise Menu And
Tool Bar Reference help topic.
The Script Editor node
defines editor preferences such as the syntax color scheme,
editor short cut keys and behavior of some editing. See also the
T-Plan Robot Enterprise Script Editor help topic.
The Tool Panel node
lists a few preferences of the Tool
Panel component.
The Web Browser node
allows to customize web browser settings. Though T-Plan Robot Enterprise
has an internal mechanism which looks for the most known web
browsers, it may either fail or open an unpreferred one on
certain configurations. This panel allows user to override the
standard behavior and specify a custom web browser start
command.
- Scripting
group configures preferences related to the scripting framework
and its individual components such as general scripting language
settings, script compilation and execution and conversion.
The Language node
allows to set default values of the output and template paths.
It also defines a few flags allowing to switch on compatibility
mode with legacy product versions.
The Execution node
defines general compilation and execution settings such as the
start and shut down timeouts, compilation settings and behavior
of GUI during execution and compilation of test scripts.
The Java Converter node
contains just setting of preferred converter plugin. As there is
currently one default converter, there's nothing to configure
unless you install a plugin of another converter.
- Script Recorder
preferences form a standalone group under the Scripting tree
branch. They deal with settings of the Script
Recorder as well as other GUI components which generate
scripting code, such as the WaitFor
Command Window.
The Mouse node lists
preferences of recording of mouse events. It allows to configure
whether to record mouse moves, clicks and drags and it also
enables to set the timeouts for multiple events such as double
mouse click.
The Keyboard node list
defines how the script recorder processes input from the
keyboard. There are options for multiple key handling as well as
conditions for generation of the TypeLine command where text
followed by an Enter key is detected.
The Update and Bell Events nodes provide
default values used by the WaitFor
Command Window to generate WaitFor commands from the
desktop update and bell events.
- Plugins tree branch is a
preference group dynamically created from the installed plugins.
As most standard features are delivered in form of internal
plugins, the group is populated even when no custom plugins are
installed.
Each child of the Plugins
node corresponds to a plugin
group representing a particular exposed functional
interface. Child nodes under the group represent
individual plugins. The
plugin group in fact shows preferences of any installed and
enabled plugin which implements the Configurable
interface.
To get general information about plugins and their eventual
configuration refer to the Plugin
Framework manual. Description of preferences of a
particular plugin is usually delivered in the plugin class
JavaDoc documentation delivered either as part of the T-Plan Robot Enterprise Java API Specification
(internal plugins) or in form or external documentation
(external/custom plugins). To find out documentation of a
particular internal plugin first review the plugin map for the
plugin class name and then select the appropriate class document
in the Java API spec.
3. Setting Preferences
Besides the Preferences window described above one may
set the preference values programmatically. To set a preference
value you must first obtain the preference key (ID) and the
value type it requires. You may find this information in the
documentation of the particular functionality, through the "Show preference detail tool tip"
feature described above or by looking at the copy of the default
configuration file in the Java
API documentation.
- Using the
-o/--option CLI option.
- Through the UserConfiguration
class of the Java API. There are two options:
- Temporary setting using a raw String value to the
override table. This overrides the preference value loaded
from the configuration file. It gets applied to the current
session only and the value never gets saved to the config
file. This way behaves the same way as the
-o/--option
CLI option. For example, to disable smooth mouse moves
temporarily use:
UserPreferences.getInstance().getOverrideTable().put("MouseCommand.enableSmoothMoves",
"false");
- Permanent setting. This is equivalent to setting
through the Preference window. The save() method will
save the modified config file to the HDD:
UserPreferences.getInstance().setBoolean("MouseCommand.enableSmoothMoves",
false);
UserPreferences.saveConfiguration();
