Keyboard commands

Engines 3.0 offer keyboard commands for your tests. Keyboard commands allow Tosca Cloud to act like a user: It navigates your application, typing on the keyboard. Typically, you will combine keyboard commands with click operations.

You can use the following types of keyboard commands:

• Text and numbers

• Single keyboard commands for simple commands

• Key combinations with the WinForms function SendKeys for more complex user interactions. For instance, if you want to mark all content of an entry field and then delete it.

• Virtual-key codes to simulate keyboard entries if your application doesn't support single keyboard commands or SendKeys.

You can also steer entire windows rather than individual elements in a window. To do so, use the Module TBox Send Keys of the Standard subset.

Enter text and numbers

To insert letters or numbers, simply enter the letters or numbers.

You can use uppercase or lowercase letters. Tosca Cloud interprets capital letters as SHIFT + lower case letters.

Some applications might not accept the input of several text characters at once.

In this case, use the syntax {TEXTINPUT["<Unicode characters>"]} to enter your text as Unicode characters.

Use single keyboard commands

To perform single keyboard commands, use the syntax {COMMAND}.

The following commands are available:

Command	Action
BACKSPACE*	Backspace
BREAK	Break
CAPSLOCK	Caps Lock
CLEAR	Clear
DEL	Delete
DOWN	↓
END	End
ENTER*	Enter
ESCAPE or ESC	Esc
HELP	Help
HOME	Home
INSERT	Ins
LEFT	<-
NUMLOCK	Num Lock
PRINT	Print Screen
RETURN	↵
RIGHT	->
SCROLLLOCK	Scroll Lock
TAB*	Tab
UP	↑
SHIFT, LSHIFT, RSHIFT	SHIFT, Left SHIFT, Right SHIFT
CTRL, LCTRL, RCTRL	CTRL, Left CTRL, Right CTRL
ALT, LALT, RALT	ALT, Left ALT, Right ALT
F1 ... F24	F1 ... F24
LWIN	Left Windows key
RWIN	Right Windows key
APPS	Windows context menu key
*These are the keyboard commands that the Mobile supports.

Commands with click operations

You can also enter commands that use click operations:

Command	Action
ALTCLICK	Left-click while holding ALT
LALTCLICK	Left-click while holding the left ALT key
RALTCLICK	Left-click while holding the right ALT key
CTRLCLICK	Left-click while holding CTRL
LCTRLCLICK	Left-click while holding the left CTRL key
RCTRLCLICK	Left-click while holding the right CTRL key
SHIFTCLICK	Left-click while holding SHIFT
LSHIFTCLICK	Left-click while holding the left SHIFT key
RSHIFTCLICK	Left-click while holding the right SHIFT key

Note that click operations are not supported.

Use SendKeys

You can use SendKeys expressions to perform more complex user interactions. For example, to specify key combinations, or to send commands to controls that don't support the direct input of certain commands.

The Tosca Cloud SendKeys expression uses the WinForms function SendKeys.

Syntax:

{SENDKEYS["<Microsoft SendKeys command>"]}

For a list of available SendKeys commands and their syntax, see the Microsoft SendKeys documentation: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.sendkeys.aspx

The double quotation marks " that enclose the SendKeys command escape any special characters within the command. If your command contains double quotation marks as a special character, you need additional escaping. For more information on working with special characters, check out Special characters.

In some cases, your application may need some time to process between commands. You can specify a delay in milliseconds with the steering param SendKeysDelay.

If you have specified both parameters, the steering param takes precedence.

Simulate keyboard entries

You can simulate keyboard entries by using virtual-key codes. Note that you can't use any of these keyboard entries for the mobile technology.

To use virtual-key codes in your expressions, use the syntax {KEYPRESS[<Virtual-key code>]}.

For a list of available virtual-key codes, see the Microsoft virtual-key codes documentation: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd375731(v=vs.85).aspx.

If you want to perform key combinations, use the syntax {KEYDOWN[<Virtual-key code>]} for pressing the key and {KEYUP[<Virtual-key code>]} for releasing it.