Overview of the Bitmap Tool

This topic contains a brief overview of the Bitmap Tool. To access more information about the Bitmap Tool, launch it and press F1 or choose Help > Help Topics.

The Bitmap Tool is an application that allows you to test and correct your Windows application’s appearance by comparing two or more bitmaps and identifying the differences between them. It is especially useful for testing inherently graphical applications, like drawing programs, but you can also check the graphical elements of other applications. For example, you might want to compare the fonts you expect to see in a dialog with the fonts actually displayed, or you might want to verify that the pictures in toolbar buttons have not changed.

It can be used as a stand-alone product, in which you create and compare bitmaps of entire windows, client areas, the desktop, or selected areas of the screen. More commonly, however, you use the tool in conjunction with Silk Test Classic. Bitmaps captured can be opened in the Bitmap Tool where you can compare them using the tool’s comparison features. Conversely, bitmaps captured by the bitmap tool can be compared by Silk Test Classic bitmap functions.

You can compare a baseline bitmap captured in the Bitmap Tool with one captured in a Silk Test Classic test case of your application.

• If you write test cases by hand, you can use Silk Test Classic built-in bitmap functions.
• If you prefer to record test cases through Record > Testcase, the Verify Window dialog box allows you to record a bitmap-related verification statement.

The Bitmap Tool can only recognize an operating system's native windows. In the case of the Abstract Windowing Toolkit (AWT), included with Sun Microsystems Java Development Kit (JDK), each control has its own window, since AWT controls are native Microsoft windows. As a result, the Bitmap Tool will only see the top level dialog box.