During recording, Robot recognizes all standard Windows GUI objects that you
click, such as check boxes and list boxes. Each of these objects is associated with one
of a fixed list of object types.
The association of an object with an object type is
generally based on the class name of the window associated with the object.
Robot also recognizes many custom objects defined by IDEs that Robot supports,
such as Visual Basic, Oracle Forms, Java, and HTML. For example, if you click a
Visual Basic check box, Robot recognizes it as a standard Windows check box. This
mapping is based on the object's Visual Basic assigned class name of
ThunderCheckBox.
These built-in object mappings are delivered with Robot and are available to all
users no matter which project they are using.
During recording, you might click an object that Robot does not recognize. In this
case, Robot's behavior is controlled by a recording option that you set. You can have
Robot either:
Open the Define Object dialog box, so that you can map the object to a known
object type.
Mapping an object to an object type permanently associates the class name of the
object's window with that object type, so that other objects of that type will be
recognized.
Automatically map unknown objects encountered while recording with the
Generic object type. This permanently associates the class name of the
unknown object's window with the Generic object type.
This is a useful setting if you are testing an application that was written in an IDE
for which Robot does not have special support and which therefore might
contain many unknown objects. When an object is mapped to the Generic object
type, Robot can test a basic set of its properties, but it cannot test the special
properties associated with a specific object type. Robot also records the object's
x,y coordinates instead of using the more reliable object recognition methods to
identify the object.
