Comparing API Playback and Native Playback for xBrowser

Silk4J supports API playback and native playback for Web applications. If your application uses a plug-in or AJAX, use native user input. If your application does not use a plug-in or AJAX, we recommend using API playback.

Advantages of native playback include:

With native playback, the agent emulates user input by moving the mouse pointer over elements and pressing the corresponding elements. As a result, playback works with most applications without any modifications.
Native playback supports plug-ins, such as Flash and Java applets, and applications that use AJAX, while high-level API recordings do not.

Advantages of API playback include:

With API playback, the Web page is driven directly by DOM events, such as onmouseover or onclick.
Scripts that use API playback do not require that the browser be in the foreground.
Scripts that use API playback do not need to scroll an element into view before clicking it.
Generally API scripts are more reliable since high-level user input is insensitive to pop-up windows and user interaction during playback.
API playback is faster than native playback.

You can use the Script Options dialog box to configure the types of functions to record and whether to use native user input.

Differences Between API and Native Playback Functions

The DomElement class provides different functions for API playback and native playback.

The following table describes which functions use API playback and which use native playback.

	API Playback	Native Playback
Mouse Actions	DomClick DomDoubleClick DomMouseMove	Click DoubleClick MoveMouse PressMouse ReleaseMouse
Keyboard Actions	not available	TypeKeys
Specialized Functions	Select SetText etc.	not available

API Playback

Native Playback

Mouse Actions

DomClick

DomDoubleClick

DomMouseMove

Click

DoubleClick

MoveMouse

PressMouse

ReleaseMouse

Keyboard Actions

not available

TypeKeys

Specialized Functions

Select

SetText

etc.

not available