eggPlant Functional v16 Release Notes

The notes below provide descriptions of the new features and changes introduced with each release of eggPlant. You are strongly encouraged to read about the relevant changes whenever you upgrade from an earlier version.

Potential compatibility issues are highlighted in RED.

Note For Cross Platform Users

eggPlant Functional for Windows contains almost all of the functionality available in eggPlant Functional for Mac. Excluded features are listed at the bottom of the release notes.

Compatibility

Mac OS X 10.8, 10.9, 10.10, 10.11

Windows 7, 8, 10, Server 2008, Server 2012

Release v16.1.1 (22-July-2016)

Highlights

• Improved script editing performance
• Choose a script to run before/after running a selection
• Improved launcher support on Windows
• TeamLicenseServer service (Windows): We have modified how the TeamLicenseServer is registered. If you previously set up the TeamLicenseServer as a service, please remove it and re-register it by using InstallTeamLicenseService.bat.

Scripting Improvements

• Improved multi-line text finding. A new optional attribute, IgnoreNewlines, when set to YES, matches a string even if it’s broken over several lines (together).

User Interface Improvements

• Script to run before/after a Run Selection is now available on the Settings tab of a suite. These options will be run when executing a selection of a SenseTalk script, Gherkin feature, or Table.
• Added source control management (SCM) information to the Account Preferences tab. These options let you enable/disable SCM, specify your user credentials, and specify which SCM program you would like to use.

Bug Fixes / Tweaks

• On Windows, the eggPlant.exe launcher has been removed. eggPlant Functional is now launched directly by calling the executable inside the Eggplant.app folder. This method avoids problems with antivirus software and makes it easier to pin eggPlant Functional to the Taskbar.
• Fixed a performance issue when naming images in a suite with many images.
• Upgrade to latest Android server, fixes a problem when switching the Android keyboard.
• Numerous fixes to support different SCM environments.
• Improved behavior when first connecting to a system under test (SUT) that is larger than your current screen.
• Fixed an exception when typing accented characters into the Feature Editor or Script Editor.
• Fixed a problem using ValidWords in conjunction with IgnoreSpaces during a text find.
• Fixed a problem with Tabs in the source string when IgnoreSpaces was enabled.
• Fixed occasional problems after capturing a new image.
• Fixed a problem where you could no longer abort a script.
• Fixed a problem where syntax errors in deeply nested property lists would cause very slow performance.
• The Control > Launch App menu will now be updated when new applications are installed on a connected iOS device.

Release v16.10 (05-July-2016)

Highlights

• Gherkin (.feature) Tests
• Source Control Management (SCM) Integration
• Connection Doctor
• Enhanced Floating License Capabilities

Scripting Improvements

• WaitFor now returns the time spent waiting for an image to be found. You can access this value by immediately getting the result:

  WaitFor 8.0, "myImage"

  put the result

• The new appList() function returns a list of apps on an iOS or Android SUT.

• Command line parameters to scripts: Starting with eggPlant Functional version 16.00, you can pass individual parameters to individual scripts by using -param myParameter. The previous behavior, where all scripts received every argument after -params, is deprecated and its use discouraged.

  runscript Script1.script -param "abc" Script2.script -param "xyz"

• Mac OS X: Changed the default behavior for xPath expressions: Prior to version 16.00, eggPlant Functional on Mac used nonstandard behavior when interpreting an xPath expression that did not begin with a slash ("/"). Starting with version 16.00, it now uses the correct, cross-platform behavior. You can re-enabled the old behavior on Mac with this script command:

  set the StandardNodeExpressions to false

User Interface Improvements

• Gherkin (.feature) Tests are a new section in the eggPlant Functional Suite window. Using standard Gherkin .feature files, you can create features, scenarios, tables, and step definitions that will be invoked in your SenseTalk scripts. Please see the eggPlant Functional Documentation for full details.
• Source Control Management (SCM) is now directly integrated with eggPlant Functional. Currently eggPlant Functional supports Apache Subversion (SVN) and Git (git). For suites that are under SCM, you will now get a status indicator and can Checkout, Update, Commit, Branch (Git), or Merge (Git) your files. For full details, please see the eggPlant Functional Documentation.
• Add parameters to the scripts called from a schedule.
• A new Set Rectangle control is available for the Viewer window toolbar. First, define the rectangle you want to identify using the capture area. Then, use this toolbar item to compute that rectangle using one (or two) images or a set of coordinates. You can use the new rectangle to limit the search rectangle, readText, or do a ScreenCapture.
• In addition to User snippets, custom snippets can now be stored in the suite.
• The Show Resource feature now works for handlers within a script.
• Show Resource can now also take you to quick help for the selected command or function.

Connection Improvements

• New embedded Android server (Android Gateway 3.2) allows remoteClipboard access as well as a full Unicode keyboard.
• iOS clipboard support, including full Unicode (requires iOS Gateway 3.2).
• New GUI panel to install and uninstall mobile apps to your Android or iOS SUT.
• Added common mobile buttons (Back, Apps, Search, Power, and Volume) to the Viewer window toolbar.
• The new Connection Doctor menu helps to diagnose the most common connection problems.

Bug Fixes / Tweaks

• Many memory and speed optimizations for all platforms but with particular benefit on Windows.
• Improved the layout and adjustment of vertical toolbars in the Viewer window.
• Cleanup to reduce inadvertently triggering virus warnings of the eggPlant application on Windows.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when a SUT connection was lost.
• Fixed a problem on Windows when editing text larger than the length of its display field.
• Fixed a start-up problem with VNC detection in some Windows environments.
• Fixed a problem with the Shell command not returning when called from runscript.
• Fixed a problem using OCR functions when running eggPlant Functional from Amazon Web Services (AWS).
• Fixed a problem with Swipe commands that specified a starting point.
• Image names are no longer case-sensitive on Linux.
• Removed many system log messages that were no longer useful.
• Now properly honor the Detailed Connection Logging preference.
• Record changes to the Text Language preference setting.
• Fixed a problem that could lead to instability when turning suite sections off and on.

Release v16.01 (23-February-2016)

Highlights

• Many stability and performance improvements.
• Updated the embedded Android server to support Android 6.0 devices.

User Interface Improvements

• Added an option to the Viewer tab of Preferences (eggPlant > Preferences >Viewer) to control automatic checking of Image Duplicates. This can be disabled to improve performance on slower machines.
• Fixed some display problems with the TypeText panel, particularly on narrow devices.
• Corrected a display issue that could cause the edges of the Viewer window to be hidden. This did not impact script execution.
• Added a maximum zoom size to the Image Editor.
• Improved performance and stability when creating Image Collections with many images.
• OCR Update panel now allows Use Info and Copy features when multiple matches are found.
• Created an option to suppress achievement notifications on Mac.
• Vertical Toolbar now supports the Color toolbar item.
• Customizing when the vertical toolbar is up now brings up the horizontal toolbar temporarily.
• In the script editor, clicking on an image token now shows the same preview pop up that is available when using auto-complete.

Connection Improvements

• Added menu support to create user-defined keyboards for RDP on the main menu by going to Control > RDP Keyboard Layout.
• Added support for UK Keyboards to RDP.
• Fixed several RDP key events (French, English, & German).
• Fixed a problem where eggCloud reservations would not extend if there was any interruption during the connection (even if the connection was re-established).
• eggPlant no longer replaces newer versions of the Android VNC server when connecting.

Scripting Improvements

• Fixed a compatibility issues introduced in v16 with the ClipRectangle property. ClipRectangle once again calculates the HotSpot before clipping is applied. The v16 CropRectangle still applies the HotSpot after clipping.
• Fixed a problem with the MonthNames and WeekdayNames functions on Mac OS X.

Bug Fixes / Tweaks

• Added logic to limit the amount of memory eggPlant Functional uses to save images on disk in memory. The default is 200 MB.
• eggPlant Functional no longer stores images in cache when Detecting Duplicate Images.
• Fixed a problem with repeated calls to Assert in a called script.
• Fixed a problem where the Image Doctor would fail when running against RealVNC Mobile devices.
• Fixed a problem modifying the contents of the Images directory while eggPlant Functional was Detecting Duplicate Images.
• Added custom image editing cursors for Linux.
• Fixed problems re-using the Tutorial SUT.
• Added protection when user-defined keyboard mappings are modified while scripts are running.
• eggPlant Functional now prevents images from having invalid clipRectangles/cropRectangles when an image is recaptured with a different size.
• Fixed a problem that could occur when you externally modified suite Resources while the Suite was open.
• Fixed a problem that could occur if you used searchRectangles with fractional values.
• Added additional logging for diagnostic purposes.
• Fixed a problem accessing the Tutorial suite on Linux.
• Fixed a problem calling RunWithNewResults in a selection when the script had not previously been run.

Release v16.00 (28-January-2016)

Highlights

• New Image Editor that allows you to mask colors, crop the image rectangle, and include or exclude pixels.
• New OCR Update panel to help you diagnose and suggests corrections for failed OCR text searches.
• New capability that Detects existing images and recommends them when you are capturing an image that is already present in your suite.
• New Achievement and Tutorial system to help you come up to speed on all the latest features of eggPlant.
• New Resources pane in the Suite window that provides you a consistent place to add data files and other test resources for use in your suite.

User Interface Improvements

• The Suite window now provides toggle buttons at the top of the left pane you can use to show or hide or the various side panes (Scripts, Images, Results, etc.).
• The Image tab now provides you access to an edit mode that enables you to do the following:
  • Crop
  • Erase individual Pixels
  • Restore Erased Pixels
  • Remove Color Ranges
  • Exclude all except a Color Range
• During an Image capture, eggPlant Functional now detects when the same image already exists in your suite. It will prompt you to decide if you want to generate your command using the existing image instead of capturing a new one.
• During an Image capture, eggPlant Functional now provides you with the option to save your image into an alternative suite (preferably a Helper suite).
• eggPlant Functional now provides an Image Update diagnostic to try trimming your existing image.
• eggPlant Functional now provides menu-items to Export user preferences, so you can transfer them to another system, and then Import them.
• The OCR Update panel helps diagnose and suggests corrections for failed OCR searches.
• The new Achievement and Tutorial system helps people come up to speed on all the latest features of eggPlant.

Scripting Improvements

• For Mac, the default image type changed to PNG instead of TIFF.

  • Existing TIFF images will continue to work.
  • PNG images are much smaller
  • PNG Images are more widely recognized
  • This change makes it easier to share scripts/suites across platforms
  • If you need to revert you can issue this user command
  • defaults write Eggplant ImageFormat tiff

• In the Suite window you can now disable/enable the various side sections to hide areas you don’t use.

• OpenTestCases is now a proper function. It will return a copy of whatever test cases are open rather than a mutable object that you could change.

• Added a function to get a resource’s full path by using ResourcePath("resourceName")

• We will now honor any alpha values in Images using the Precise text search type.

Connection Improvements

• eggPlant now has predefined keyboard definitions for SUTs that you connect using Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). In addition to our definitions, users can create their own versions of these files for other languages. Select your preferred language from the Control menu.
• Fixed several RDP key events.
• Fixed a problem where eggPlant would not connect to an RFB 5.x server.
• Fixed a problem that occured when entering incorrect RDP credentials.

Scripting Improvements

• Improved Table Scripts to reload the data file when editing new lines.
• Fixed some compatibility issues introduced in v15 with extras parentheses.

Bug Fixes / Tweaks

• Fixed issues on Windows with pasteboard access hanging or crashing eggPlant.
• Fixed an warning on Mac OS X 10.11 when opening scripts.
• Fixed a few problems when generating commands from the SenseTalk browser.
• Fixed some problems dragging tabs out of suites.
• Fixed a problem where canceling an Add representation didn’t always stop the new image from being added.