Locators
Many classes have shortcut names used when creating (instantiating) a class with a
configuration object. The shortcut name is referred to as an alias (or xtype if the
class extends Ext.Component). The alias/xtype is listed next to the class name of
applicable classes for quick reference.
Framework classes or their members may be specified as private or protected. Else,
the class / member is public. Public, protected, and private are access
descriptors used to convey how and when the class or class member should be used.
Public classes and class members are available for use by any other class or application code and may be relied upon as a stable and persistent within major product versions. Public classes and members may safely be extended via a subclass.
Protected class members are stable public members intended to be used by the
owning class or its subclasses. Protected members may safely be extended via a subclass.
Private classes and class members are used internally by the framework and are not intended to be used by application developers. Private classes and members may change or be omitted from the framework at any time without notice and should not be relied upon in application logic.
static label next to the
method name. *See Static below.Below is an example class member that we can disect to show the syntax of a class member (the lookupComponent method as viewed from the Ext.button.Button class in this case).
Let's look at each part of the member row:
lookupComponent in this example)( item ) in this example)Ext.Component in this case). This may be omitted for methods that do not
return anything other than undefined or may display as multiple possible values
separated by a forward slash / signifying that what is returned may depend on the
results of the method call (i.e. a method may return a Component if a get method calls is
successful or false if unsuccessful which would be displayed as
Ext.Component/Boolean).PROTECTED in
this example - see the Flags section below)Ext.container.Container in this example). The source
class will be displayed as a blue link if the member originates from the current class
and gray if it is inherited from an ancestor or mixed-in class.view source in the example)item : Object in the example).undefined a "Returns" section
will note the type of class or object returned and a description (Ext.Component in the
example)Available since 3.4.0 - not pictured in
the example) just after the member descriptionDefaults to: false)The API documentation uses a number of flags to further commnicate the class member's function and intent. The label may be represented by a text label, an abbreviation, or an icon.
classInstance.method1().method2().etc();false is returned from
an event handler- Indicates a framework class
- A singleton framework class. *See the singleton flag for more information
- A component-type framework class (any class within the Ext JS framework that extends Ext.Component)
- Indicates that the class, member, or guide is new in the currently viewed version
- Indicates a class member of type config
- Indicates a class member of type property
- Indicates a class member of type
method
- Indicates a class member of type event
- Indicates a class member of type
theme variable
- Indicates a class member of type
theme mixin
- Indicates that the class, member, or guide is new in the currently viewed version
Just below the class name on an API doc page is a row of buttons corresponding to the types of members owned by the current class. Each button shows a count of members by type (this count is updated as filters are applied). Clicking the button will navigate you to that member section. Hovering over the member-type button will reveal a popup menu of all members of that type for quick navigation.
Getting and setter methods that correlate to a class config option will show up in the methods section as well as in the configs section of both the API doc and the member-type menus just beneath the config they work with. The getter and setter method documentation will be found in the config row for easy reference.
Your page history is kept in localstorage and displayed (using the available real estate) just below the top title bar. By default, the only search results shown are the pages matching the product / version you're currently viewing. You can expand what is displayed by clicking on the button on the right-hand side of the history bar and choosing the "All" radio option. This will show all recent pages in the history bar for all products / versions.
Within the history config menu you will also see a listing of your recent page visits. The results are filtered by the "Current Product / Version" and "All" radio options. Clicking on the button will clear the history bar as well as the history kept in local storage.
If "All" is selected in the history config menu the checkbox option for "Show product details in the history bar" will be enabled. When checked, the product/version for each historic page will show alongside the page name in the history bar. Hovering the cursor over the page names in the history bar will also show the product/version as a tooltip.
Both API docs and guides can be searched for using the search field at the top of the page.
On API doc pages there is also a filter input field that filters the member rows using the filter string. In addition to filtering by string you can filter the class members by access level, inheritance, and read only. This is done using the checkboxes at the top of the page.
The checkbox at the bottom of the API class navigation tree filters the class list to include or exclude private classes.
Clicking on an empty search field will show your last 10 searches for quick navigation.
Each API doc page (with the exception of Javascript primitives pages) has a menu view of metadata relating to that class. This metadata view will have one or more of the following:
Ext.button.Button class has an alternate class name of Ext.Button). Alternate class
names are commonly maintained for backward compatibility.Runnable examples (Fiddles) are expanded on a page by default. You can collapse and expand example code blocks individually using the arrow on the top-left of the code block. You can also toggle the collapse state of all examples using the toggle button on the top-right of the page. The toggle-all state will be remembered between page loads.
Class members are collapsed on a page by default. You can expand and collapse members using the arrow icon on the left of the member row or globally using the expand / collapse all toggle button top-right.
Viewing the docs on narrower screens or browsers will result in a view optimized for a smaller form factor. The primary differences between the desktop and "mobile" view are:
The class source can be viewed by clicking on the class name at the top of an API doc page. The source for class members can be viewed by clicking on the "view source" link on the right-hand side of the member row.
When a web application is loaded in the browser, there are two different layers of items you can reference during a test:
Components are the physical Ext JS or ExtReact objects, such as a grid, or a combobox. When you have a reference to a component like a grid, you can easily reference its properties and child items such as its title, rows, and docked items like toolbars and buttons.
Elements are the representation of those components in the browser - the HTML
markup you see in the page. When you have a reference to an element, there is no
real context about what that element represents. It's most likely just a div in
the page, so it's not easy to reference grid rows and toolbars from that layer. If no
Sencha framework is being used, you would only be working with the Elements layer.
In order to make use of the Futures API, you need to know how to locate components and elements.
Elements and Ext JS components can be referenced through different locators.
A locator is a type of selector, similar to a CSS selector, that tells Sencha Test how to reference a component or element. The Futures API supports the following different locator strategies for components and elements:
For Ext JS and ExtReact apps, you will mostly make use of the Component Query or Composite locator, but we will discuss each of these below, and show some example syntax.
In an Ext JS or ExtReact application, Component Query or Composite Query is usually used.
This is the most commonly used locator strategy. It is a feature provided by the Ext JS and ExtReact frameworks that can locate components of the application. Component Query syntax is similar in style to DOM Query.
Component Query is described in-depth within the Ext JS documentation, but we'll cover some examples here:
In Ext JS, xtype refers to the component's type. Each of the out-of-the-box
components in Ext JS has an xtype. When you browse the Ext JS documentation,
when you look at the docs for Grid
or ComboBox,
you'll notice the xtype of that component is listed at the top. Sometimes a
component may have more than one xtype alias listed.
For example, the Grid has these possible xtype values:
grid
or
gridpanel
If there is more than one matching component (more than one grid), you need to make the locator more specific, so it only matches one component.
Developers often set custom types for their own components within applications. For
example, if a developer has created a grid of users, they may decide to give
that grid an xtype of usergrid, or similar. So you can also reference custom
types that may have been specified by the development team:
usergrid
In general, it's bad practice for developers to set the id on Ext JS
components, as this causes issues when trying to create multiple instances
of that component on the page. itemId is much more commonly used, as this
doesn't cause such conflicts.
Using the following syntax enables you to reference a component by its
id or itemId:
#userGrid
This can be combined with xtype, so in the case of the following example,
a grid that has an itemId of userGrid is returned:
grid#userGrid
You can combine Component Query and DOM Query in a "Composite Query" by using
the => to separate the two pieces.
For example:
#myComponent => div.content
This locates the child div element with class content inside the component
with an id or itemId of myComponent.
If you have a web app that doesn't make use of a dynamic framework like Ext JS, then Element selectors are very useful.
Locators that start with the @ character are called "at-paths". The
first token of an at-path is an element ID. Following the first token is
a slash-delimited sequence of tag names and offsets, similar to XPath.
For example:
@some-div/span[2]
This identifies the 2nd "span" element that is an immediate child of the element with the id "some-div".
The equivalent XPath expression would be:
//[@id="some-div"]/span[2]
The primary advantages of at-paths over XPath are compactness and speed.
This is because an at-path uses getElementById followed by a simple path
based on tag names. Because at-paths are inherently based on IDs, they
will be most useful in applications that assign meaningful IDs to their
elements.
XPath is probably the most powerful supported locator syntax. Sencha Test uses the document.evaluate method of the browser, but also a polyfill when this method is not present.
In addition to attribute matching, XPath can also navigate upwards, unlike CSS selectors.
For example:
//[id="some-div"]/..
The above XPath selects the parent node of the node having ID of "some-div".
Note: Sencha Test requires that all XPath locators start with a slash character. Typically XPath locators will begin with "//" (as shown above) so that matches do not start at the document root.
Some useful resources on XPath:
The DOM Query, or CSS Selector, is perhaps the most familiar locator syntax
supported by Sencha Test. To differentiate DOM Query locators from the
Component and Composite Queries (discussed above), a DOM Query starts
with >> or =>.
The above paths would be approximated by the following DOM Query:
>> #some-div > span:nth-child(2)
This is only approximately the same because nth-child() does not require the first child to also be a span.
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