A powerful feature of IBM® Rational® Manual Tester is the ability to save testing instructions, called statements, in manual test scripts and reuse them in other scripts. Reusing statements saves time when authoring scripts and when updating scripts to reflect changes to the application.
Saving and reusing test statements is particularly helpful for statements that appear frequently in your scripts; for example, logging onto an application or typing a user name and password.
To save test content for reuse, you select one or more statements or groups of statements in the Outline view and drag them into the Reuse view. The Reuse view is a collection of the statements you have saved for reuse. It is available whenever you open Manual Tester, so you can use the reusable statements in any manual test scripts.
If you want to create a reusable statement using copy and paste, press Ctrl+C to copy and Ctrl+R to paste a reference copy. When you paste the statement, Manual Tester displays a message asking if you want to add the pasted item to your list of reusable statements. Click Yes to save the statement for reuse. Manual Tester adds the statement to the Reuse view. If you click No, Manual Tester pastes the referenced statement, but does not add it to the Reuse view.
When you copy a statement and paste it as a referenced statement in a different location in the same file, Manual Tester does not include the statement in a gray box. When you edit a referenced statement in a file, Manual Tester automatically updates all the copies of the statement in the file. When you copy a statement to a different file, Manual Tester includes the statement in a gray box. When you edit the original source of the statement, Manual Tester updates all instances of the statement. You can paste a cut statement once; you can paste a copied statement several times.
You can organize the Reuse view by dragging statements or groups of statements into any order you want. You can also create folders and drag statements into them.
When you want to reuse reusable statements, you simply drag the content from the Reuse view to where you want it in the Outline view. Manual Tester inserts the content into your script in a gray box to indicate that it is a reference to reusable statements.
To further indicate references to reusable statements, Manual Tester uses slightly different icons for each statement type. The icons that indicate a reference to reusable statements have a small arrow in the lower left corner. The following table lists the icons that Manual Tester uses when the four different types of statements are reused:
Icon | Type of Reusable Statement |
---|---|
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Step |
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Verification point |
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Reporting point |
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Group folder |
By default, Manual Tester stores the file containing all the reusable statements in C:\Documents and Settings\username\MTA. You can use the Main Preferences page of the Preferences dialog box to set a different reuse file location.
Parent topic: Saving and Reusing Test Statements
Related tasks
Saving Statements for Reuse
Reusing Test Statements
Editing Reusable Statements
Organizing the Reuse View
Removing a Reference to a Reusable Statement
Deleting Reusable Statements
Setting Manual Tester Preferences
Related reference
Outline View
Reuse View