Image Matching Mode Choices in the Visual Editor

Overview

For each screenshot in a test, you can choose how Rainforest attempts to match the screenshot with elements appearing on the screen during a test. You have a choice between two matching modes:

Intelligent (the default)
Strict

Image and Style Block

How Rainforest QA Image Matching Works

Intelligent matching mode is designed to evaluate elements on the screen like a human would. This means it’ll successfully match screenshots and elements while ignoring visual differences that most people wouldn’t notice, including:

minor differences in color, font size, spacing, or rendering,
appearance of text and mouse cursors over elements, and
unimportant differences in white space (i.e., padding and margins).

Strict mode will only pass exact matches between screenshots and elements. Any failure to find an exact match between a screenshot and an element on the screen will result in a FAIL.

How it Works

Our Intelligent matching mode will tolerate the kinds of changes, that a person would find difficult to notice. Those small differences will result in a PASS, just as you’d expect if a human were to see it.

Reason	IF you’ve captured this element	AND your website or app shows this element	THEN the result would be
Text decoration			PASS
Font size			PASS
Font weight			PASS
Image size			PASS
Spacing between elements			PASS
Text color			PASS
Background color			PASS
Mouse cursor shows up by accident			PASS
Text cursor that shows up by accident			PASS
Text that renders differently in Windows and macOS			PASS

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Pro Tip
Even though Intelligent matching mode is tolerant to differences, we still recommend you regularly update your element screenshots so they’re always up-to-date with the latest state of your website or app, increasing test stability.

And here are examples that we’d still consider FAIL:


Case Change			FAIL

Our Strict mode will not tolerate any differences between a screenshot and visual elements the virtual machine finds. We recommend you use this mode when you want to verify that an element appears_ exactly_ as it appears in its screenshot.

If you have any questions, reach out to us at [email protected].