In this article we shall discuss the advantages DOM has over VO. First, we shall discuss about these two silk
test browser extensions individually.
About VO Extension
- VO browser extension is related to the
concept of virtual object.
- An extension is a
supplementary add–on component required for carrying out certain tests for
web sites and web applications using silk test.
- This virtual browser extension
operates using a technique called the “sophisticated pattern recognition
technique”.
- This technique helps in facilitating the object identification
process and provides an actual view of the web sites and web applications.
- However, the HTML tags cannot be recognized with the help of this extension. - One thing
to be noted is that only the objects present in the web pages can be recognized
by the virtual object browser extension.
- This extension however does not care
about the implementation of these objects.
- Identification of the object is done
based up on the following:
- Control type
- Caption
- Associated text
- Control index
- Location and
- Window ID
- This browser extension is one of the methods used by the silk
test for object recognition.
About DOM Extension
- The second method is the Document Object Model and
makes use of the DOM browser extension.
- DOM browser extension is basically used
for establishing a direct communication between the web application and web
browser.
- The following tasks can be carried out:
- Recognition of the objects
- Categorization of the objects and
- Manipulation of the objects
- The DOM browser extensions works with the HTML code rather
than working up on the visual patterns like the virtual browser extension does.
- Firstly, it identifies the browser window of the application which consists of
the application that is currently being executed.
- The object among the other
web UI objects is identified based unique HTML elements that represent that
particular UI object.
- This is done by concatenating the following two things:
- HTML element identification and
- Browser window identification
- This DOM browser extension is known to operate on the
standards laid down by the W3C or world wide web consortium.
- However, till date
there are only two browsers which support this extension namely internet
explorer 5+ versions and netscape 6.
- These two web browsers provide the
provision to silk test for making direct queries to them.
Advantages of DOM over VO
Now let us see what all advantages DOM has got over the VO
browser extension:
- A rectangle is displayed over the VO or virtual
object by the recorder as the recording is carried out by the quality
assurance engineer.
- The text size
as well as the actual name of the objects is easily recognized by the DOM extension as compared with the VO browser extension.
- The DOM extension is not dependent on the text
size setting and browser size like the VO browser.
- DOM extension provides a better support to the
border-less tables.
- More classes and properties are available in DOM extension as compared to the VO browser extension.
- Using DOM extension, you can maintain a great
consistency over the object recognition process.
- DOM extension is quite fast in working as compared
to the slow VO browser extension.
- One can expect some gain in the playback speed in
DOM extension but the same is not possible with the VO browser extension.
- There is less crashing or freezing events in the
recorder with the DOM extension and more in the VO browser extension.
- In VO browser extension the conversion of scripts
is more like a daunting task but this not so with DOM.
