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T-Plan Robot Enterprise 4.4.7 Doc Collection
GUI Reference
29/01/19

T-Plan Robot Enterprise 4.4.7 Tool Panel

Contents
1. Overview
2. Paths Tab
3. Variables Tab
4. Compiler Tab

1. Overview

The Tool Panel is the tabbed view situated at the top left corner of the T-Plan Robot Enterprise window. It consists of five tabs:

The Tool Tab
  1. The Project tab displays details of the current project. This component is described in its own Projects help topic.
  2. The Paths tab (known as the "Settings" tab in the 2.x releases) configures I/O settings of the current script (the one displayed in the editor below the tab). The tab is not visible when no script is opened.
  3. The Variables tab displays the table of compilation and execution variables of the current script. The tab is not visible when no script is opened.
  4. The Compiler tab provides a list of errors produced by the last compilation of the current script. The tab is not visible when no script is opened.
  5. The Exec Log tab is a cumulative view of script execution logs. This component is described in its own Execution Log help topic. The tab is not visible if no script is opened and there are no execution logs (no script has been executed since the application start).
Compared to the 2.x releases:
 

2. Paths Tab

This tab works closely with the script in the active editor. Its controls correspond to commands in the test script and any change will be also reflected in the script content:

Tool Panel - Paths Tab
Option
Description
Project (unique)
Create a unique project report (output) path for each script execution. The script outputs will be redirected to a new folder of <project_home>/reports/<script_file_name>_<time_stamp> where the time stamp is the execution (compilation) start time in milliseconds elapsed since 1 January 1970. See the Projects help topic for details.

IMPORTANT: Starting with v4.0 this is the default option when the global path is not set. Any project located script that does not set the _REPORT_DIR variable will output by default to a unique project report path. Versions 3.x and older in this case fall back to the user home folder.
Project (shared)
Redirect the script outputs to the default project folder. This will rewrite the script outputs on each execution. See the Projects help topic for details.
Global...
Redirect the script outputs a global path specified in the Language panel of the Preferences window. This option is compatible with the 2.x releases and it is applied when the script code does not make any attempt to modify the _REPORT_DIR variable.

IMPORTANT: Setting of the Global path will be saved to the configuration file which will be then loaded by all Robot processes on start up. That's why it will impact all scripts on the machine which do not set the  _REPORT_DIR variable explicitly. Use this option with care.
Custom...
Save the script outputs to a custom path.

Option
Description
Project template dir
Resolve relatively referenced template images against the project template path at <project_home>/templates. See the Projects help topic for details.

IMPORTANT: Starting with v4.0 this is the default option when the global path is not set. Any project located script that does not set the _TEMPLATE_DIR variable will default to the project template directory. Versions 3.x and older in this case fall back to the user home folder.
Global...
Resolve relatively referenced template images against a global path specified in the Language panel of the Preferences window. This option is compatible with the 2.x releases and it is applied when the script code does not make any attempt to modify the _TEMPLATE_DIR variable.

IMPORTANT: Setting of the Global path will be saved to the configuration file which will be then loaded by all Robot processes on start up. That's why it will impact all scripts on the machine which do not set the  _REPORT_DIR variable explicitly. Use this option with care.
Custom
Search for template images in a custom path.
When the _REPORT_DIR and/or _TEMPLATE_DIR variables and/or the Report command/method call get manually updated in the editor, the fields of the Settings tab will change as soon as the script gets compiled. If the on-the-fly compilation is switched off the fields will remain out of sync with the script until the script gets compiled or executed.


3. Variables Tab

There are generally three types of variables:
  1. Predefined variables, sometimes also called implicit ones. Their name typically starts with underscore '_'. These are created by the underlying automation framework for each script compilation or execution.
  2. Custom variables defined in the script through the Var and Eval commands (TPR test scripts) or the getContext().setVariable() method calls (Java test scripts).
  3. Variables created by executed commands or method calls.
The Variables tab contains two independent variable tables:
  1. The Compilation Variables ("Compilation Vars") tab displays the list of variables defined during the most recent script compilation.
  1. The Execution Variables ("Exec Vars") tab displays the list of variables defined during the most recent script execution. The table will contain a similar variable set as the compilation one plus any variables produced by the executed commands, such as for example by the image comparison or the File/Excel I/O. The execution variables can be also tracked in the XML reports created by the Report command or one of the report() Java methods.

Variables
      TabThe picture on the left displays an example of the execution variable table of a simple Java test script with a variable called MY_VARIABLE.  A right click onto the variable opens up a context menu with the following actions (also available through buttons below the table):
Variables may have a fixed value through the -v/--variable CLI option. Such variables have the '(fixed)' suffix appended to their name. For example, the image on the left displays a fixed variable called MY_FIXED_VARIABLE because the tool was started with the -v "MY_FIXED_VARIABLE=fixed" CLI option. Fixed variables can't be changed in the script and their value remains constant for the whole time of T-Plan Robot Enterprise execution. If you make an attempt to modify such variable using the Var or Eval command, it will be ignored and no error message or warning will be reported. This mechanism was designed to allow to design parametrized test scripts.




4. Compiler Tab

The Compiler tab displays error and warning messages from the most recent compilation of the current script.