Hi David,

To elaborate on this request I would like to provide some details for how elements are being handled in Test Studio. I hope that these will be helpful for sorting out the listed difficulties. 

The elements references are being stored in each test and the Pages.g.cs file is being dynamically generated based on the current content of the project. But how are these organized in the Elements Explorer? 

Each element is recorded under a page node at least -if it is in a frame, there is one more additional frame node between the page and element nodes in the Element Explorer. The different page nodes are compared based on their properties and the specific compare mode selected for the node and the project. 

The compare mode can be set on project level in the Project Settings -> Recording tab and will be applied for all future recorded elements. If there are existing page nodes, which actually correspond to the same page, but with different query or fragment portion, you can change the page nodes properties to match the desired compare mode and these will be merged into single node in the Elements Explorer. That way an new elements will be directly merged to any already existing elements under the matched page node. 

If you setup the project as per the specifics of the tested application, it should be easier to maintain the elements in the Elements Explorer. Please, take a look on these suggestions and try to apply these. I guess your project is large and complex, so I will recommend you test these adjustments in a copy of the project - that way you will avoid messing up the project if you need to test different settings to find the most appropriate. 

I also remain available to continue the discussion in terms of identifying if there is a feature suggestion, which can improve this overall process. 

Thank you for your cooperation in advance.

Regards,
Elena
Progress Telerik