The observation is correct and we respect people who have the courage to express that out (many projects just buy expensive a testing tool, record a few tests, and tick 'Automated Testing' checkbox, period):

• UI Test Automation Tools are Snake by Michael Feather" (2010-01-04)
• "Automated testing through the GUI is intuitive, seductive, and almost always wrong!" by Uncle Bob, 2009-09-30

TestWise is different, we don't have sales pitch like "buy our tool it is simple as 'record-n-playback'". GUI automated testing is known easy to break, TestWise provides various support for maintain and develop test scripts in an easy and efficient way. Automated testing gets hard if no commitment and collaboration from the whole team, but the benefits are great, far greater than the effort.

"It is scary to think of software development without TestWise after using it" - user feedback

"Zhimin makes a good point that collaboration is a good thing and any tool that promotes it is a winner in my book. I like his approach." Lisa Crispin, author of 'Agile Testing'

Certainly. As matter of fact, this tool is built with non-programmers in mind!

We don't believe output from 'record-n-playback' tools are proper test scripts for real world, certainly without testers' refinement. If testers don't have full understanding of test scripts (commonly in proprietary syntax), how can they make changes? (Is there anybody still believing the fairy tale of 'requirement never changes ...')

Developing test scripts in TestWise might look like programming, but it is much simpler and easier than many (without programming) thought, how about this one?

 click_link('Login')
 enter_text('username', 'bob')
 enter_password('password', 'thetester')
 click_button('Login')
 page_text.should include('Welcome Bob')

The best place to start is trying some sample tests under samples\ folder, then create your own project and using TestWise Recorder to create your first test. You will be surprised how easy it is!

Yes. The test framework used in TestWise is RWebSpec, is an extension of popular Watir. You can check out Watir Testimonials. Watir's growing popularity can be approved from its clones: WatiN in Mircosoft .NET platform and Watij in Java Platform.

To quantify test framework's reliability, here we quote the test expert Lisa Crispin (author of 'Agile Testing') "We have a number of Watir suites, plus one big giant suite that includes all the others, the giant one takes maybe 3 hours to run." (here).

Here is a Comparison of Watir with Silk Test (conducted in 2005 by Tuyet Cong-Ton-Nu)

We believe automated testing shall be accessible to majority (if not all) team members. We have seen TestWise amongly mostly used software in teams embracing automated testing. Developers use it for verify their own work; Customers, Team Leaders, Business Analysts and testers all have use of it. Here we give you an example of a team leader running a test suite before going to a presentation confidently. More importantly, you will see power of team co-operation.

There is absolutely NO catches. All the tools (except IDE) are open source and free, and tests created by TestWise IDE can be executed from command line, and edited by other IDE or text editors.

The $399/$999 price is not a mistake!

Firstly, 'Open-Source' is not equal to 'Free'. Richcard Stallman, founder of GNU, says: "When we call software 'free', we mean that it respects the users' essential freedoms". TestWise gives your maximum freedom, it’s test framework, recorder and runtime are all free and open-source. You can run test without TestWise IDE or edit it with NotePad. Making tool itself open-source has no benefits to users, just like we want PDF format to be an open standard, but don’t really care how Adobe Acrobat Reader is made.

In fact, offering software completely free does no good for customers. How often have you seen developers abandoning free, open-source projects? You probably won't do your job free for long either. Instead, our approach is sustainable: affordable testing tools that gives users maximum freedom with support. When our business is doing well, we make donations to free open sources projects (Watir).

 spec -fs your_spec.rb

Here is a screenshot of TestWise IDE on Mac.

1. Download and install AutoIT3, using its "AutoIt Window Info" tool to identify controls. Sorry, no recording tool here.
2. Open project C:\Program Files\TestWise\samples\form_calculator\calculator.tpr, run it you shall see the ruby test scripts driving Windows' calculator.

All licensed users are access to unlimited E-mail support, Free. Customers can also select supporting services suit their needs.

• Priority support and feature requests
• Create the TestWise project with a working test case

• Setting up Continuous Build Server with acceptance tests, and even Lava Lamp
• Test Script Reviews

Different from many so called 'Lite' edition of software, TestWise Community edition has all necessary features to navigate, edit, and run test scripts.

Community Edition is restricted to non-commercial use only.

TestWise leads the testing tools in terms of being open and affordable. The test framework, runtime and recorder are free.

We don't think free software actually serves customer's best interests, especially GUI software (paying graphic design, dealing with various UI issues, and donation of free frameworks ...). Over the years, we have seen many free, open-source projects being abandoned (for obvious reasons). This could mean loss of your investment of effort and time. Being a paid customer, you will not only have assurance of long-standing products, but also know you can get support (note: AgileWay's support will surprise you with joy).

Have a read of this intriguing blog post: 'Which tool would you pick...' from Venkat (Author of 'Practices of Agile Developer')

TestWise IDE also has a built-in recorder for IE, but it is still in experimental stage.

spec your_spec.rb 

click_link("first: using RWebSpec syntax") # RWebSpec syntax
link(:text, "second: using Watir syntax").click  # Watir syntax

If you want to switch to RWebSpec (and introducing page objects for maintainability), it may be easier than you think. Running Watir tests against Firefox with TestWiseRecorder enabled, you will get executable RWebSpec test steps. It might also be a good time do some refactorings.