eValid™ -- Automated Web Quality Solution Browser-Based, Client-Side, Functional Testing & Validation, Load & Performance Tuning, Page Timing, Website Analysis, and Rich Internet Application Monitoring.

Introduction
Reliable recording and playback, essential for regression testing or for functional monitoring, requires that tests take special care with initial conditions. If your application does not create and child windows or if your application can tolerate all child windows being closed automatically by eValid, then you don't need these options.

General Comment
eValid is a regression testing tool, and reliable operation -- which will detect if a test fails to behave as it should behave -- is fundamentally a question of detecting change.

If the test you are running starts from a place different than when you recorded it you would expect the test to fail -- from eValid's point of view, something has changed, i.e. regressed. eValid tests are only effective if they always start from the same initial condition (initial state).

Here are some specific kinds of facts about a regression test that may affect the initial conditions and hence may be important to consider when designing a test.

• Cookies
  Another common initial condition problem occurs when regular cookies (not session cookies, see below) are placed in cache during recording, and are present when playback starts.

  If a recording is made that assumes that a cookie is in place, the resulting playback will fail if eValid executes a DeleteCookies command before playback. This the reason that the "standard" eValid recording process is to delete cache AND to delete cookies before making the recording (see below).

  For example, if you are already logged in when you make your recording, the actions taken during the recording and/or the actions taken at the start of playback, may log you out. Your script assumes you are logged in, you've logged out and deleted cookies, so the script doesn't work (yet, eValid has behaved correctly, given the changed initial conditions).

  One solution is to use the available options in the eValid Cache Manager to choose to "delete cookies before playback" and probably to "delete cache before playback".

  Or, you can add DeleteCookies commands in your script (if they are not already there).

• Login State Preserved
  If you have logged in during recording a test session you probably ought to log out at the end of the test. Not doing so means that the just-recorded script will try to log in to an already-logged in copy of eValid. Playback in this case probably won't work correctly.

• Child Window Processing
  During recording eValid numbers window in a very precise way. Window "0" is the eValid browser. If the pages you're testing open child windows, they are numbered "1", "2", etc. However, if the recording starts with a child window already open, and the pages you are testing open additional child windows, they may be incorrectly numbered "2", "3", etc. Already-open child windows are numbered "1", "2", etc.

  Normally evalid closes all child windows before starting playback. A playback error will occur if a recording with an open child window numbered "1" exists [but is closed because of playback] because subsequently opened child windows during recording will be numbered "2", "3", etc. At playback time child window "1" having been closed automatically, and playback errors are likely.

  1. Child Window Processing Settings During Recording
     Note: This feature is preset to Prompt To Close Child Windows.
     Three selections can be made from the Settings Preferences to control how eValid processes child windows at the start of recording.
     

  2. Prompt to Close Child Windows
     When this selection is made eValid will prompt you to determine if you wish to have all open child windows closed by evalid before starting the recording. In most cases the it is correct to close all open child windows before starting recording.

  3. Keep Child Windows Open
     If this option is set then eValid will not prompt you and will NOT close open child windows at the start of recording. It is your responsibility to assure than any open child windows are open before playback starts.

  4. Close Child Windows (Recommended Setting)
     If this options is selected eValid will automatically close all child windows before starting to create a test script. This matches eValid's standard playback behavior which closes any open child windows before starting playback.
     

  5. Child Window Suppression Option
     If there are child windows open at the time you start recording, and you have the Prompt to Close Child Windows option set, here is the modal dialog that you will see when you start recording:
     

• Session Cookie
  A session cookie is a state value that is stored in memory, and is NOT stored in a cache cookie file. (Unlike a regular, persistent cookie, a session cookie is NOT stored in the cache.)

  A session cookie is established by the actions of website under test. The only way a session cookie can be "reset" is to close the eValid browser and open it again. Note that if you are running in batch mode each eVlaid playback gets a fresh copy of eValid and that new copy will NOT have the session cookie included.

• Session State In URL
  In some system, the current system state is preserved as a set of modifiers to the basic starting URL. You'll see this as a long string of characters appended to the www.mysite.com address. In most cases tests that start on such an address will not produce reliable results. It is better to reload the original www.mysite.com and start the recording from that location.