Question

I am currently evaluating possible solutions to limitations in Microsoft’s Test Manager 2010 TestStep Editor control and I was wondering whether anyone knows if and if so, how you can write richtext to the Action and Expected Result fields of a step? As far as I saw it takes a ‘ParameterizedString‘ as input, but I am not sure what parameters MSDN refers to (or the MTM TestRunner can handle) when saying “[…]Represents a string that has embedded parameters.[…]”.

Answer 1

The Expected Results string is a list of string namees delimited by spaces, semi-colons or commas. You can enter something like: @Test, @Cart, @Book or @Test @Cart @Book.

You can’t add HTML to the Expected Result parameters or the action; however, I am not sure I would describe this as a limitation. What action were you thinking you would need to be able to do this. Actions are typically “Click this” or “Go to here” Did you just want a stronger visual queue for certain parts of the action?

Here is an article that describes the intent with the expected results section:

The real power of the test case though, comes in the bottom portion of
the screen, on the Steps tab. This is where you list out the manual
steps the tester will use to test the application. Start typing where
it says “Click here to add a step.” In the Action column, you add the
action that the tester should try and perform, such as “Open Internet
Explorer.” In the Expected Results column, you list what should happen
when the action is performed, such as “Internet Explorer opens to its
default home page.” To continue adding new steps to the test case, hit
Enter to go to a new line.

Not every action step requires an expected result. When an expected
result is specified, it turns that step into a verification step. With
a verification step, the tester will have to specify whether that
particular step was successful or not.

You have the ability to provide parameters to your test steps. This
allows you to run the test multiple times, each time using a different
value. An example of this would be testing different login values on a
Web site. Instead of creating a new test case for each login, you can
create one test case, and pass multiple login values into it.