Scan remote terminal applications

Your application has various controls, which are elements that Tosca Cloud interacts with when you run your tests. To make this possible, you must first scan your application. This gets the necessary technical data into Tosca Cloud.

This topic explains how to scan remote terminal applications like Host emulator sessions or PuTTY terminal applications.

Start the scan

To start the scan, follow these steps:

1. If you want to scan a PuTTY application, close all open Host applications. Otherwise, the scan doesn't detect the PuTTY application.

2. Open the test case building area by selecting Create test case in the menu bar on the left.

3. Select Modules and then + Create module.

4. Select Remote terminal application from the dropdown menu.

Prepare for Host scans

This section explains extra steps you need to take before defining Host controls in the scan window.

If you're working with a PuTTY application, you can skip this section and go straight to Choose your controls.

Choose your session mode

Tosca Cloud supports the following session modes: 

• Host emulator sessions. An emulator session uses an active Host emulator connection to navigate your mainframe application via your emulator. Emulator sessions support ASCII and Japanese character sets. It's possible that the scan may display characters that aren't visible in the emulator.

• Host headless sessions. A headless session uses an active Host headless connection to navigate your mainframe application via the scan window. Headless sessions only support the ASCII character set.

Please choose your use case:

Choose your controls

To add controls to your module, follow these steps:

1. In the ribbon menu of the scan, select the type of control you want to add to your module: Label, TextBox, or Table.

2. Create your control.

   Note that for Host sessions, Tosca Cloud measures all heights and widths of Host controls in characters. When selecting a control area in the scan window, avoid separating double-width characters. This ensures a correct scan of Host controls.

   Please choose your use case:

   I want to create a Label control for Host or PuTTY.

   For a Label control, highlight the line where your text is located in the Content Preview.

   Tosca Cloud automatically uses the following properties to define your control:

   Property	Description
   Height	Overall height of the label.
   Width	Overall width of the label.
   Column	On-screen position of the starting column of the label.
   Row	On-screen position of the starting row of the label.

   I want to create a TextBox control for Host.

   For a Host TextBox control, highlight the content in the Content Preview, or use the ribbon menu entry Search TextBoxes. Make sure to check that the Content Preview matches the screen you want to scan. Select Refresh to update the preview to the current emulator screen.

   For headless Host sessions, you can use the ribbon menu entry Input Password for sensitive data. This lets you input this data in a separate field, which is then safely sent to the mainframe without showing your input on the screen.

   Tosca Cloud automatically uses the following properties to define your control:

   Property	Description
   Height	Overall height of the text box.
   Width	Overall width of the text box.
   Column	On-screen position of the starting column of the text box.
   Row	On-screen position of the starting row of the text box.

   I want to create a TextBox control for PuTTY.

   For a PuTTY TextBox control, perform one of the following actions:

   If you want to use this control to verify text within your application's window, highlight the content in the Content Preview.

   If you want to use this control to send text or run keyboard commands, you don't have to highlight anything. Action mode Input always places your content in the terminal's current active position.

   Tosca Cloud automatically uses the following properties to define your control:

   Property	Description
   Height	Overall height of the text box.
   Width	Overall width of the text box.
   Column	On-screen position of the starting column of the text box.
   Row	On-screen position of the starting row of the text box.

   I want to create a Table control for Host.

   For a Host Table control, select Area in the ribbon menu of the scan. Then, highlight the outer area of your table in the Content Preview. Alternatively, you can define the area manually in the Properties pane.

   When you highlight your table area in the Content Preview, make sure that you define your column borders correctly. These columns define the input fields for your modules, which means that text that belongs to the column must fit into the defined column area. If you miss the starting position of the input field, your input step in the test case won't work.

   Tosca Cloud automatically uses the following properties to define your control:

   Property	Description
   Height	Overall height of the table.
   Width	Overall width of the table.
   Column	On-screen position of the starting column of the table.
   Row	On-screen position of the starting row of the table.
   ColStartList	Comma-separated list of the first character of every column, relative to the control coordinates. This property always starts with 1.
   HeaderHeight	Height of the header, counted from the top of the table. The default value is 0.
   RowHeight	Specifies the row height. The default value is 1, which means that Tosca Cloud counts every line as a row.
   HeaderRow	Specifies whether the table has a header or not: -1: table has no header. 1: table has a header.
   NoScroll	Specifies whether the table spans over multiple screens or not. The default value is False.
   ScrollForwardKey	Specifies the key to scroll the table forward. The default value is {F8}.
   ScrollBackwardsKey	Specifies the key to scroll the table backwards. The default value is {F7}.

   You can now perform the following actions:

   • To choose a different row height, modify the RowHeight property.

   • To define the columns of your table, select Columns in the ribbon menu. Then, define your columns in the Content Preview. Alternatively, you can define the columns manually in the Properties pane.

   • To define a different header, select Header in the ribbon menu. Then, define your header in the Content Preview. Alternatively, you can define the columns manually in the Properties pane. By default, Tosca Cloud uses the first row as the header of a table.

   • Change other table properties to customize the table to your needs.

   I want to create a Table control for PuTTY.

   For a PuTTY Table control, select Area in the ribbon menu of the scan. Then, highlight the outer area of your table in the Content Preview.

   Tosca Cloud automatically uses the following properties to define your control:

   Property	Description
   Height	Overall height of the table.
   Width	Overall width of the table.
   Column	On-screen position of the starting column of the table.
   Row	On-screen position of the starting row of the table.
   ColStartList	Comma-separated list of the first character of every column, relative to the control coordinates. This property always starts with 1.
   HeaderHeight	Height of the header, counted from the top of the table. The default value is 0.
   RowHeight	Specifies the row height. The default value is 1, which means that Tosca Cloud counts every line as a row.
   HeaderRow	Specifies whether the table has a header or not: -1: table has no header. 1: table has a header.

   You can now perform the following actions:

   • To choose a different row height, modify the RowHeight property.

   • To define the columns of your table, select Columns in the ribbon menu. Then, define your columns in the Content Preview.

   • To define a different header, select Header in the ribbon menu. Then, define your header in the Content Preview. By default, Tosca Cloud uses the first row as the header of a table.

3. To add additional controls to your module, repeat this process.

4. If you're scanning Host and you want to add controls from another screen, before you navigate to a new screen, we recommend that you select Finish screen to save each module with a screenshot of the Content Preview. To keep screenshots consistent with the controls in the module and avoid later confusion, use Refresh to update the Content Preview when you create separate modules for separate screens.

5. Once you've selected all controls you want to add to the module, select Finish screen. This saves the module to your workspace. Then, select Close.

What's next

Now that you have your modules, you can start creating test cases for PuTTY terminal applications and Host emulator sessions.