Hello Travis and all! Thank you for launching this very interesting subject! Indeed we have to find a way to test scenarios. Let me expose you my opinion about this, after having played a little bit with both solutions. At the first approach, Test::WWW::Mechanize looks very interesting. Easy to use, tried and true method and approved in the perl's world. But if you are not enough bearded, it is not for you :-) The wiki page ( http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Interface_testing_with_WWW::Mechanize) speaks about a record script (httprecorder). I got some troubles with it. - I did not use it with success on my local Koha installation. The script logs all my actions on each website except for my local instance. I don't know why :-/ - On a remote installation, I got a very ugly interface caused by a javascript error (opwindow is null while (opwindow.opener) blah blah). This code seems added by the recorder. Quite strange! Did someone else already get these issues ? So T::W::M is easy to use, modulable, etc. but to write all the tests ourselves (manually) will be a pain ! A big problem is that as T::W::M does not support javascript ( http://search.cpan.org/~jesse/WWW-Mechanize-1.72/lib/WWW/Mechanize/FAQ.pod#J...), we will not be able to test all the interface features. Selenium provides a simple browser extension ( http://release.seleniumhq.org/selenium-ide/). Recording and replaying your scenario is very simple. But the last Perl formatters is out to date. So I tested the version 1.1.0 ( http://release.seleniumhq.org/selenium-ide/1.1.0/selenium-ide-1.1.0.xpi). After doing my tests, I export them into a perl test file (using Test::WWW::Selenium and Test::More). The generated code could be quite verbose. It is an utopian dream to think we will use these tests as it. To have maintainable tests we will have to do some refactoring for a lot of actions. To launch these tests, I have to install the selenium server (30Mo http://selenium.googlecode.com/files/selenium-server-standalone-2.26.0.jar). "java -jar server.jar" and I can launch correctly my tests, but through a firefox instance. How can I launch them without X server? It is possible : http://www.alittlemadness.com/2008/03/05/running-selenium-headless In addition of a test suite, as Travis already said, it would be great to have some bug reports with a corresponding scenario in order to reproduce easily the bug. Otherwise a test suite could be coupled with a new enhancement explaining how to test it. We have to decide what we do want exactly and to which purpose. If we think that some librarians are potentially able to generate easily test suites (when opening a bug report) or to replay a scenario (when testing a new enhancement), I think we have to choose one of these solutions. But which one ? :) Has anyone else already used one of these projects, and has feedback to share ? Regards, Jonathan 2012/11/17 Travis Elliott Davis <elliott@bywatersolutions.com>
I have been exploring the idea of automated UI testing for awhile now and have come up with a few different solutions. My top two picks currently are: WWW::Mechanize in conjunction with HTTP::Recorder, or the FOSS project Selenium. Both ideas have merit in my opinion but my favorite is Selenium.
Reasons Why:
1. Selenium has a FF plugin which makes recording tests cases and suites easy as pie 2. Selenium has a new "web driver" which makes testing more dynamic pages possible. For a more detailed explanation see http://seleniumhq.org/docs/03_webdriver.html 3. You can still perform headless testing. However, it is slightly more difficult to do with Selenium than with WWW::Mechanize. 4. Selenium will write Perl test scripts for you, right from the FF plugin.
I'm sure there are more reasons than the ones listed above but I would just like to get the conversation going.
The other thing that Selenium would allow us to do is automate our bug and enhancement testing. For example, when you submit a patch you may also submit a selenium test so that whoever is testing your patch may replay your test on their development environment. Obviously there are some cases where this would be more helpful than others (I'm thinking of varying search results) but it is a start.
Please let me know your thoughts. I encourage you to visit the Selenium website and test drive Selenium for yourself. Also, please note that the FF plugin on the FF add ons page seems to be out of date so try getting the XPI from the Selenium site.
Best Regards,
Elliott Davis
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