Besides a rich set of GUI recognition and interaction capabilities, TestComplete provides automation developers a powerful object tools for back-end automation.

If you have a generic task to implement, don’t always rush to coding on your own, see what built-in features the tool has. In TestComplete, you can start browsing family of objects which support generic tasks by typing “aq” (I guess, that’s an abbreviation from “AutomatedQA”) in help index.

The list includes (but not limited to) the following.

aqBinaryFile
aqConvert
aqDateTime
aqDlg
aqDriveInfo
aqEnvironment
aqFile
aqFileInfo
aqFileSystem
aqFileVersionInfo
aqFolderInfo
aqObject
aqString
aqTextFile
aqUtils

As you can find out, some of these objects (like aqTextFile, aqFile, aqFileInfo) provide wrapping interface for such standard objects as FileSystemObject and its children. Others, like aqString or aqConvert, provide compensation for those TestComplete’s scripting languages (TestComplete allows creation of tests on VBScript, JScript, DelphiScript, C++Script, and C#Script) that do not have rich built-in support for string or data conversion operations.

But there are also unique features, like Runner object and aqObject with its children. While beginner developers, probably, won’t really need using advanced techniques, they would come very handy for experienced professionals creating frameworks for testing of complex applications.