Typing and Special Keys

Typing is recorded automatically whenever you press keys in the recorder. However, the recorder must be in Live mode and your mouse focus must be on the recorded browser window. If the focus is elsewhere, keystrokes are sent to the TestCLIX application itself instead of the recorded scenario.

Each keystroke is sent to the recorded page - no element selection or XPath is involved. If a specific element has focus (e.g., a text field), the keystrokes go to that element. If no element is focused, the keystrokes are still delivered to the page and the application can react to them however it chooses - for example, a browser game may respond to arrow keys without requiring a specific element to be selected first.

The recorder captures two kinds of keyboard input:

• Regular typing - any text characters, including Unicode and international characters (e.g., ą, ć, ü).
• Special keys - functional keys such as Enter, Tab, or the arrow keys.

Consecutive keystrokes of the same kind are merged into a single event. For example, typing “hello” produces one event with the full text, and pressing Backspace three times produces one event with a count of 3.

How it works

When you type in the recorder, each character is dispatched to the browser and a keyboard event is added to the timeline. If the previous event is also a regular typing event, the new characters are appended to the existing event instead of creating a new one.

Special keys work the same way - consecutive presses of the same key are merged into a single event with an incremented count. Pressing a different special key starts a new event.

Supported special keys

Key	Description
Backspace	Delete character before cursor
Tab	Move focus or indent
Enter	Submit or new line
Escape	Cancel or close
Delete	Delete character at cursor
ArrowUp	Navigate up
ArrowDown	Navigate down
ArrowLeft	Navigate left
ArrowRight	Navigate right
Home	Jump to start of line or field
End	Jump to end of line or field
PageUp	Scroll up
PageDown	Scroll down

Best used for

• Email and password fields
• Search boxes
• Autocomplete inputs
• Keyboard-driven navigation (e.g., selecting items with arrow keys)
• Form submission with Enter

Common errors

Error	Meaning	What to do
Unknown key	The special key name is not in the supported list.	Use one of the supported special keys listed above.
Step timed out	The keystroke could not be dispatched within the allowed time.	The page may still be loading. Add a pause before the typing step.

Caveats

• Make sure the intended field is focused before typing. If no element has focus, the keystrokes may be lost or sent to an unexpected target.
• If a field appears after another action (e.g., a modal opening), add a pause before typing to give the UI time to settle.
• Special key behaviour depends on how the target application handles keyboard input. For example, Enter may submit a form in one application and insert a new line in another.
• To paste a longer value in one step instead of typing it character by character, use Text Paste.