GUI Tests

Note

This page describes an out-of-date method for running automated tests for Virtaal. The testing framework for Virtaal will probably change into something entirely different. This page is only left as a reference.

Required Packages

  • Dogtail
  • Gnome’s accessibility framework

Running the Tests

Note

For KDE users: You must run gnome-session before you can run any of the GUI tests. gnome-session might complain that another session manager is already running, but it will nevertheless start up the accessibility services which you need to run the GUI tests.

The tests are located under the directory called gui_tests. Currently, the tests must be executed from within gui_tests.

Writing GUI Tests

Accerciser allows you to inspect the GUI of a running application that was started using the Gnome at-spi framework. Dogtail does this when it launches an application; the easiest way to do this is to launch a Python shell. The following Python session shows the necessary steps and the expected output:

Python 2.5.2 (r252:60911, Apr 21 2008, 11:12:42)
[GCC 4.2.3 (Ubuntu 4.2.3-2ubuntu7)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> from dogtail.utils import run
Creating logfile at /tmp/dogtail/logs/log_20080516-115347_debug ...
>>> run("./run_virtaal.py")
Detecting distribution: Ubuntu (or derived distribution)

You will now see run_virtaal.py in Accerciser’s left column. You can now use Accerciser to find the names of various widgets which you can use to write Dogtail tests for Virtaal.