nexial-core 4.1 (2021-08-14)

Release 4.1

2021-08-14

General

Fixes

• minor console logging formatting
• fix error when retrieving profile-based variable set from a macro
• updated batch files (nexial-script-update, nexial-artifact-repair & nexial-variable-update) for downloading the nexial-lib-x.x.zip
• address recent issue on *NIX/MAC system where the /tmp directory cannot be clean up due to permission

Improvements

• support Java 16
  • adjustments for older Java (pre Java 11)
• enhancements to Execution Summary to show/hide timing and pass/fail information.
• minor stylesheet update for email notification template.
• Nexial build size has been reduced by extracting some jars into nexial-lib-1.0.zip this will be downloaded by nexial automatically.
• Batch file nexial-lib-downloader has been added to download nexial-lib-x.x.zip file manually.
  • minor fixes applied to ensure successful downloading of support lib zip file.

Batch Files

• nexial-project: support automatic creation of project directory, when a fully qualified path is specified.

Interactive

• minor adjustment to render activity listing correctly

Expressions

• WEB » check(locator): NEW operation to ensure a checkbox is checked
• WEB » uncheck(locator): NEW operation to ensure a checkbox is unchecked
• rewrote parsing logic for expression in order to support parameter values that contains (, ), [, and ].
  • it is now possible to nest parenthesis (( and )) and square brackets ([ and ]) within expression operations.
• implemented special parameter delimiter - ` %% - to handle situations where comma (,`) is used as part of the parameter itself. This special parameter delimiter allows user to use commas freely as part of the parameter value.
• TEXT » swapCases: NEW operation to swap letter cases.

desktop commands

• added more meaningful error messages for explicit wait
• added auto-retry logic
  • assertLocatorPresent(locator)
  • clickMenuByLocator(locator,menu)
• autoscanning: code fixes to continue with autoscanning when an error occurred due to component not being active or mis-configured.
• remove over-zealous trimming of component text during editing of a textbox/textarea component.
  • typeTextBox(name,text1,text2,text3,text4)
  • typeTextArea(name,text1,text2,text3,text4)
  • typeAppendTextBox(name,text1,text2,text3,text4)
  • typeAppendTextArea(name,text1,text2,text3,text4)
• HierTable support:
  • auto scrolling for HierTable to bring offscreen rows into view (currently only support Infragistics4 UI):
    • assertHierCells(matchBy,column,expected,nestedOnly)
    • assertHierRow(matchBy,expected)
    • editHierCells(var,matchBy,nameValues)
    • saveHierCells(var,matchBy,column,nestedOnly)
    • saveHierRow(var,matchBy)
  • allow “extra” section of a HierTable element to be loaded more dynamically
  • reformat multi-line column headers as single line to better support assertions and data comparison
    • assertHierCells(matchBy,column,expected,nestedOnly)
    • assertHierRow(matchBy,expected)
    • saveHierCells(var,matchBy,column,nestedOnly)
    • saveHierRow(var,matchBy)
• code fix to eliminate unwanted exceptions

macro commands

• produce: allow a data variable generated in within a macro to be exposed to the calling script directly via its data variable name.

mobile commands

• alpha build for local mobile test automation support.
  • documentation forthcoming (please be patient).
• current implementation requires user to install android studio, android sdk, platform-tools, AVD manager, any Android emulators, and Appium Desktop BEFORE using Nexial’s mobile automation feature.
• additional profile configuration for added:
  • .orientation
  • .geoLocation
  • .server.url
  • .server.address
  • .server.logging
• Appium support:
  • fix the shutdown sequence of appium server when Nexial is terminating execution
  • support externalizing the Appium’s log during execution (log/appium.log under the output directory)
  • support both external appium server integration and auto-start appium server during Nexial execution
  • improved Android setup script to install Android SDK and emulators
    • alpha-ready: Android setup script will now
      1. install Android SDK to ~/.nexial/android/sdk
      2. install Android system images (user selects)
      3. install Android emulators with skins (user selects)
      4. create batch files to start emulators
    • added support for MacOS shell scripts
    • added common utility batch files to ${NEXIAL_HOME}/bin/mobile
  • auto-resolves the location of Appium Server startup script (main.js)
  • auto-resolves the location of NodeJS executable (node)
  • correctly sending the correct time unit for newCommandTimeout capability.
• assertCount(locator,count): NEW command to assert the occurrence of specified locator.
• assertElementsPresent(prefix): NEW command to assert the presence of a series of locators.
• assertElementVisible(locator): NEW command to assert that the element referenced by the specified locator is both present and visible on current screen.
• assertLocked(): NEW command to assert that the target device is currently locked.
• assertTextPresent(locator,text): NEW command to assert that an element contains the specified text.
  • scan across all matching elements (not just the 1st one) for text content assertion.
• back(): NEW command to navigate back to previous screen.
• clickByDisplayText(text): NEW command to click an element based on its text. improved implementation to handle text with single and/or double quotes.
• closeApp(): implementation change to ONLY close the specified application of current mobile profile.
• doubleClick(locator,xOffset,yOffset): NEW command to simulate double-click action on specified locator.
• forward(): NEW command to navigate forward from current screen (after navigated back to previous screen)
• hideKeyboard: NEW command to key on-screen keyboard
  • add auto-hiding of on-screen keyboard via nexial.mobile.hideKeyboard System variable.
• home(): NEW command to navigate to current device’s “HOME” screen.
• lock(): NEW command to lock current device.
• longClick(locator,waitMs): NEW command to simulate long-click action on a device; generally used to evoke context menu or popup menu.
• recentApps: NEW command to show recently opened (and still running) apps on current device.
• saveCount(var,locator): NEW command to save the number of matching elements to var.
• saveLockStatus(var): NEW command to save current device lock status (LOCKED or UNLOCKED) to var.
• saveText(var,locator): NEW command to save the text of the referenced element to var.
• saveTextArray(var,locator): NEW command to save the text of all matching elements as an array (or list) to var.
• screenshot(file,locator): now support “output-to-cloud” functionality, which is toggled via the nexial.outputToCloud System variable.
  • improved stability and performance.
• scroll(locator,direction): added more fine-grained scroll increments
  • fix code to properly scroll in all 4 directions.
• select(locator,item): NEW command to select an item from a dropdown.
  • code fix to accurately select items that are not immediately visible on-screen.
• sendSms(phone,message): NEW command to send SMS message to specified phone number.
• shake(): NEW command to simulate shaking the current device (iOS only), which could trigger other event.
• shutdown(profile): NEW command to shut down any running emulator and Appium server instance.
• type(locator,text): now supports clearing out text (if text is (empty)).
  • fix code to allow time for the onscreen keyboard to render.
  • improved stability and performance.
• waitForElement(locator,waitMs): wait until the target element is found before continuing execution.
• unlock(): NEW command to unlock current device. By default, no password is placed on emulator. For unlocking a device with passcode or pattern, visit Appium Desired Capability and search for unlockType and unlockKey.
• Locator support:
  • now supports a variety of locators via unique prefixes:
    • id=...: ID-based locator.
    • xpath=...: XPATH-based locator. Note that the xpath= prefix not required since XPATH locators are fairly easy to recognize
    • a11y=...: accessbility id-based locator.
    • class=...: class-based locator.
    • res=...: resource id-based locator, which is an alias to ID-based locator.
    • predicate=...: predicate-based locator. Note that this is for iOS device only.
    • cc=...: class chain-based locator. Note that this is for iOS device only.
    • name=...: name-based locator, which is an alias to ID-based locator. Note that this is for iOS device only.
  • fix code to support both implicit and explicit wait strategy.
  • text=...: NEW locator type to simplify automation.
  • nearby=...: NEW locator type to simplify the task of identifying elements that are adjacent to label or text element.
• automatically add scenarioRef for the mobile device used in automation.

rdbms commands

• update multiple database drivers to newer version for better product support

localdb commands

• localdb driver (sqlite) configuration has been removed from build.gradle and it has been configured to download it automatically while using localdb command for the first time

sound commands

• play(audio): update all sound files to MP3 (instead of WAV) to reduce footprint
• play(audio): it will download and play the audio files from ${user.home}/.nexial/sound/

web commands

• waitForPopUp(winId,waitMs): FIXED to support both window name and window index. Also, the target window will be selected (meaning: switched to) when it is detected within the specified max time.
• added more meaningful error messages for explicit wait
• click(locator): better “find element” strategy for click target
• avoid “double-highlighting” caused by nested command calls
• highlighting improvement made to reduce styling conflicting against AUT
• type(locator,value): minor logging improvements for clarity
• Support SELECT element on extracting the text of the selected option.
  • assertText(locator,text)
  • assertNotText(locator,text)
  • assertTextContains(locator,text)
  • assertTextNotContain(locator,text)
  • saveText(var,locator)
• close: also shut down underlying webdriver if the last browser window is closed.
• selectDropdown(locator,optLocator,optText): NEW command to select an option from a dropdown component.
• waitForElementTextPresent(locator,text): NEW command to wait for the presence of an element that matches both the specified locator and specified text.
• disable native screenshot when executing under headless environment (not supported)
• disable native DnD when executing under headless environment (not supported)
• waitWhileElementNotPresent(locator,waitMs): NEW command to ensure that a specific element is not present within a fixed amount of time.
  • code fix to prefer the waitMs parameter over nexial.pollWaitMs value.
• additional settings to speed up and stabilize chrome browser during automation, esp. in headless mode.
• assertElementNotPresent(locator,maxWaitMs): added maxWaitMs to custom amount of time to wait.
• slight adjustment for all waitUntil... and waitFor... commands to improve stability by adjusting between-check wait time from 10 to 25 ms.
• disable the use of GPU when running Chrome Headless.
• nexial.web.useReact: NEW System variable for improved support on React applications.

webmail commands

• attachment(profile,id,attachment,saveTo): NEW command to download an attachment associated with an email identified by id and save it locally to saveTo.
• attachments(profile,id,saveDir): NEW command to download all the attachments associated with an email identified by id and save them locally to saveDir (directory).
• code fix for the obscure condition where the attachment file name contains path information.

ws commands

• upload(url,body,fileParams,var):
  • additional logging enabled via the nexial.verbose System variable.
  • honoring the Content-Type header defined in preceding header(name,value) command(s).
  • support content type with charset.
  • further customization and control via nexial.ws.multipart.charset and nexial.ws.multipart.spec System variables.
• graphql(url,body,var): NEW command to support GraphQA request automation
• code fix to stabilize and enhance web service logging.
• prevent default content type to be sent as a part of a GET request header; GET request, per spec, does not require any Content-Type header.