ACCESSING EXTERNAL FUNCTIONALITY FROM WITHIN A TEST EXECUTIVE TOOLKIT

A system and method encapsulates selected functionality of a programming environment, defines an interface to the encapsulated functionality, and utilizes the encapsulated functionality from within an add-on toolbox to the programming environment through the interface. Objects may be constructed from the selected functionality of the programming environment. The functionality may be built-in or custom designed functionality. The objects are registered with the add-on test toolbox, and made available to a user of the add-on toolbox. The user may enter information into a user interface specifying selected functionality and its properties. An object manipulation engine receives the to information entered into the user interface, and uses it to issue calls through the interface to construct the objects and invoke one or more of the methods.