Setting Up Preferences in your SOAPUI
In this tutorial, let’s see how to setup preferences and save your preferences available in SOAPUI open source version and Pro version.
** Update – Complete SoapUi Tutorials now available here
Step by step explanation of all the preferences is explained below.
Step 1: To go to Preferences window, click on File –> Preferences or you can just press Ctrl+Alt+P key as shown in the image below.
Choose file preferences
Step 2: This will open the SOAPUI Preferences window as shown below.
SOAPUI Opensource version:
SOAPUI beta Preferences
SOAPUI Pro version:
SOAPUI pro preferences
Some of the tabs in both SOAPUI open source and Pro versions are common. The tabs in preferences window are explained below.
1. HTTP Settings tab:
Set properties specific to HTTP protocol (protocol version, User-Agent header, request and response compression etc.).
Http preferences
| Option | Description |
| HTTP Version | Selects the HTTP version |
| User-Agent Header | Sets the HTTP User-Agent Header. If none is specified the default HttpClient header is used |
| Request Compression | Selects the request compression type |
| Response Compression | Indicates if compressed responses from hosts are accepted |
| Disable Response Decompression | Disables decompression of compressed responses |
| Close connections after request | Disables HTTP Keep-Alives by requesting to close the HTTP connection after each request. This will have a negative impact on performance but may give more realistic values during load testing |
| Chunking Threshold | Using content-chunking for requests larger than threshols, blank to disable |
| Authenticate Preemptively | Send Authentication headers with each request without first receiving an authentication challenge. This is a potential security hazard but will improve performance since only one request will be required for authenticated endpoints instead of two |
| Expect-Continue | Adds Expect-Continue header to outgoing request. |
| Preencoded Endpoints | Do not URL-encode endpoints, set this if your endpoint URLs are already URL-encoded (containing for example %20 or %3A) |
| Bind Address | The local address to bind to when sending requests, can be overridden on a request level (with the corresponding request property) and on a system level by setting the soapui.bind.address system variable. |
| Include request in time taken | Includes the time it took to write the request in time-taken |
| Include response in time taken | Includes the time it took to read the response body in time-taken |
| Socket Timeout | The socket timeout for HTTP requests in milliseconds |
| Max Response Size | The maximum number of bytes to read from a response (0 = unlimited) |
| Max Connections Per Host | The maximum number of simultaneous connections to a specific host. Increase this value if you are running LoadTests with more than 500 threads on a particular host. |
| Max Total Connections | The total maximum number of connections. Increase this value if you are running LoadTests with more than 2000 threads. |
| Leave MockEngine | Will leave the MockEngine running even when all MockServices have stopped resulting in much faster startup-times for new MockServices and 404 errors when trying to call a stopped MockService (instead of connection failure) |
| Enable Mock HTTP Log | Logs wire content of all mock requests. Selecting this option will degrade Mock Engine performance marginally and may require restart to enable or disable. |
2. Proxy settings tab:
Define proxy server (host, port, username, password and excludes). Also this is where user specify whether proxy is in use or not.
| Option | Description |
| Proxy Host | The HTTP Proxy host to use |
| Proxy Port | The HTTP Proxy port to use |
| Proxy Username | The username sent for proxy authentications |
| Proxy Password | The password sent for proxy authentications |
| Excludes | A comma-separated list of hosts to exclude, for example “127.0.0.1:8080, myserver.com” will not use a proxy for 127.0.0.1 on port 8080 and myserver.com on any port. |
| Enable proxy | Flag indicating if supplied proxy properties should be enabled, i.e. if proxy should be used |
3.SSL Setting tab:
Define keystore, and Mock service SSL parameters.
Proxy preferences
| Option | Description |
| KeyStore | Path to the keyStore to use when locating client certificates |
| KeyStore password | the keyStore password |
| Enable Mock SSL | Enables SSL support for MockServices |
| Mock Port | The port for SSL connections |
| Mock KeyStore | The keystore to use for SSL certificates |
| Mock Password | The keystore password |
| Mock Key Password | The default keys password |
| Mock TrustStore | The truststore to use (optional) |
| Mock TrustStore Password | The truststore password |
| Client Authentication | Indicates if client authentication is required |
4. WSDL Settings Tab:
Define WSDL specific properties.
wsdl preferences
| Option | Description |
| Cache WSDLs | Turns on and off caching of WSDL’s |
| Sample Values | Generates example values in requests when creating from schema |
| Type Comment | Generates comments with type information in new requests |
| Include Optional | Always includes optional elements in generated requests |
| Pretty Print | Pretty prints response messages in response editor |
| Attachment Parts | Generates part-elements in request messages for mime-attachments in RPC messages (required by some ws-stacks) |
| No Content-Type Validation | Does not validate the content-type of a mime-attachment against the type(s) specified in the SOAP-Binding |
| Schema Directory | Specifies a directory containing schema (.xsd) files that should be automatically added when parsing or validating wsdl or requests. Changing the contents of this directory requires a restart. |
| Name with Binding | Tells SoapUI to name imported interfaces with the name of their corresponding soap/http binding, and not with their portType. This ensures that WSDL containing bindings for both SOAP 1.1 and SOAP 1.2 will get unique names during import. This setting defaults to true. |
| Excluded Types | A list of XML-Schema types and global elements in the form of name@namespace which will be used when generating sample requests and responses and input forms in the SoapUI Pro Form editor. By default the XML-Schema root element is added since it is quite common in .NET services and generates a sample xml fragment of about 300 kb!. |
5. UI Settings Tab:
Define user interface properties (backup, autosave, look & feel, items ordering in a tree, tooltips visibility, garbage collection interval etc.).
UI Preferences
| Option | Description |
| Close Projects | Closes all projects at startup for improved startup-time and less memory consumption. |
| Order Projects | Sorts Projects in alphabetical order in the navigator. |
| Order Services | Sorts Services in alphabetical order in the navigator. |
| Order Requests | Sorts Requests in alphabetical order in the navigator. |
| Show Descriptions | Show description content when available |
| Save Projects On Exit | Automatically save all projects on exit. |
| Create Backup | Creates a backup copy of a projects project-file before saving. |
| Backup Folder | The folder where to save backups, if relative or empty the folder is relative to the project files folder |
| Auto Save Interval | Sets a project auto save interval (in minutes). If set over 0, SoapUI will automatically save all projects that have no running tests (both Functional and Load) at the specified interval |
| Desktop Type | Selects which desktop layout to use. SoapUI Pro adds a Tabbed Desktop as an alternative to the default layout. Changing this setting will be applied when closing the preferences dialog. |
6. Editor Settings Tab:
Set various editor properties like font, line numbers visibility, request and response validation etc.
Editor preferences
| Option | Description |
| Editor Font | The font to be used by all XML Editors. The “Select Font” button opens a dialog for selecting the desired font and size. |
| XML Line Numbers | Shows line-numbers by default in all XML-Editors (use Alt-L in editors to toggle). |
| Groovy Line Numbers | Shows line-numbers by default in all Groovy-Editors (use Alt-L in editors to toggle). |
| Disable auto-resize | Disables automatic resizing of request/response editors. |
| Tabbed Request view | Sets the tab-layout as the default layout for request/response editors. |
| Validate Requests | Turns on automatic validation of requests before they are submitted from a request editor. The validation performed is the same as when pressing Alt-V in the editor. |
| Abort on Invalid | Enabled in conjunction with “Validate Requests”, if selected any requests that fail validation will not be submitted. |
| Validate Responses | Turns on automatic validation of response messages when they are received in a response editor. The validation performed is the same as when pressing Alt-V in the editor. |
7. Tools Tab:
Define external tools executables. To run tools from the Tools main application menu, their executables must be defined here.
Tools Preferences
| Option | Description |
| JBossWS wstools | Location of JBossWS wstools |
| JAX-RPC WSCompile | Location of JAX-RPC wscompile |
| JAX-WS WSImport | Location of JAX-WS wsimport |
| Axis 1.X | Location of Axis 1.X |
| Axis 2.X | Location of Axis 2.X |
| .NET 2.0 wsdl.exe | Location of .NET 2.0 wsdl.exe |
| XFire 1.X | Location of XFire 1.X |
| CXF 2.X | Location of CXF 2.X |
8. WS-I Settings Tab:
Define WS-I tools properties.
WS-I preferences
| Option | Description |
| Verbose | Sets verbose output of WS-I tools |
| Results Type | Sets which results to show in the generated report |
| Message Entry | Shows message entries in report |
| Failure Message | Includes defined failure messages in report |
| Assertion Description | Includes description of each test assertion in report |
| Tool Location | Local path to installed WS-I test tools |
| Show Log | Shows Log window when running WS-I tools |
| Output Folder | If specified, generated HTML reports will automatically be exported to this folder, which is required when running ws-i validation from the command-line or one of the Maven plug-ins |
9. Global Properties :
Define custom global application properties.
| Option | Description |
| Enable Override | Enables overriding of any property-reference with global properties |
10. Global Security Settings Tab
Define password for shadowing proxy password in settings file.
| Option | Description |
| Password | Password for shadowing proxy password in settings file |
11. WS-A Settings
Define parameters related to web services addressing.
| Option | Description |
| Soap Action Overrides WS-S Action | If present in the WSDL soap action overrides wsa:Action |
12. loadUI Settings Tab
Define path to loadUI and integration ports.
| Option | Description |
| loadUI.bat(.sh) folder | Path to loadUI executable |
13. Web Recording Settings Tab
Define request headers to exclude during web recording.
| Option | Description |
| Excluded headers | Request headers to exclude from recording |
14. SoapUI Pro Tab
Set SoapUI Pro specific properties.
| Option | Description |
| Default Request Editor | Sets the default Message Editor to use when a Request is opened |
| Default Response Editor | Sets the default Message Editor to use when a Response is received |
| Outline Editor Limit | Defines the maximum size of messages to handle in the outline editor; since the outline editor consumes a large amount of memory, setting a limit related to ones own memory settings is encouraged |
| Form Editor Limit | Defines the maximum size of messages to handle in the form editor; since the form editor consumes a large amount of memory, setting a limit related to oneâs own memory settings is encouraged |
| Table Inspector Columns | Sets the maximum number of columns displayed by the Table Inspector (due to performance reasons). |
| Script Library | Part to folder containing groovy object scripts that should be globaly available |
| Disable Reporting | Disable reporting to preserve memory |
| Complete Error Logs | Logs complete messages to reports on errors |
| Custom Report Library | Path to folder containing custom jasper templates or reports |
15. Coverage Settings Tab
Enable or disable autopreparation of coverage reports.
| Option | Description |
| Auto Prepare | Automatically prepares for Coverage calculation when opening a window containing Coverage content. |
16. Code Templates Tab
Define code templates.
| Option | Description |
| Add | Adds new template |
| Delete | Removes selected template |
| Restore | Restores templates to default settings |
17. JDBC Drivers Properties Tab
Declare jdbc drivers and their connection string patterns.
| Option | Description |
| Adds a driver to the driver list | |
| Removes selected driver from the driver list | |
| Loads driver values from an external file | |
| Reloads default driver settings |