GUI Testing large LabVIEW executables

[newbieprogrammer]

Hello esteemed folks and fellow enthusiasts, 

I recently began looking for getting a labVIEW product we build (an absolute behemoth purely in terms of what all it does) some GUI testing coverage. 

I did some reading and came to the conclusion that it isnt going to be easy. However, I presume most of the folks have dealt with this one way or the other. 

My questions are as follows: (this pertains to testcomplete)

1. How do I access UI elements in any fashion?

Since it isn't using standard windows UI elements, I assume ill have to use some sort of VI reference inside and be able to broadcast the specific info about the control and its state through TCP/IP. 

2. How do interact with the UI elements (since the application uses lots of subpanels), how do I "press" or select buttons or menu items?

 Any other fun recommendations? I would also like to know if there are other utilities people have tried. 

I am currently still going through what's on the market but I'd appreciate inputs so that I can prototype it myself.

[cordm]

There is a talk from Sam Sharp about this, also using testcomplete. They basically implemented a VI that accesses GUI elements using VI server and provides a TCP interface for external applications.It is proprietary, so there was no code shared, but the basics are covered and I think you can infer the rest.

You will need some more tools to collect all front panel elements across VIs, this might be helpful (I have not done any automatic GUI testing myself):

There are recordings on Youtube: Automated GUI testing with LabVIEW - Sam Sharp and GLA Summit 2022/Beyond unit tests - automated GUI testing of LabVIEW applications.

[newbieprogrammer]

Hey, thanks for your take on this. I will explore the idea a bit more and see how I can integrate it best in my case.