Squish tip of the week: How to spy menu items using Pick tool

Using the Pick tool to spy items which only appear when a parent or related item is first selected may appear impossible, but it’s not!

Imagine you want to verify or inspect an item in a menu, drop down list, context menu, etc. You click the menu, and then the Pick tool. Clicking away makes the menu close. How can you possibly ‘pick’ such an object?

Two options:

• Option 1: Select the parent item using the Pick tool and manually navigate the Application Objects tree.
• Option 2: Run the IDE using a remote connection to where the AUT is running and select the menu item using the Pick tool

Option 2: Remote Squish IDE & the Pick tool

As learned in a prior Squish tip of the week, your Squish IDE can create tests and interact with applications through a remote connection. Read more here: Squish tip of the week: Create tests against a remote environment

1. Once you have the remote connection setup, record a test (or use Launch AUT) using a Squish IDE on a separate computer from the running AUT (this also works with a host computer and virtual machine).
2. Click the menu in the AUT to display the menu contents.
3. Return to the computer where the IDE is running and select the Pick tool.
4. Because these are two different systems, the menu does not close (or disappear) when you click the Pick tool.
5. Back on the computer where the AUT is running, select the menu item of interest.

Result:

The Squish IDE now displays the menu item in the Application Objects tree with its associated properties and values in the Properties list.