Testing in Forte: Good News :-)

Question

Hi
The purpose of this message is to address some inaccuracies in the attached
message regarding testing tools. I thought I would share with you all what
I found out about testing tools that work with Forte.
I heard back from Forte users about two testing tools:
1) Mercury LoadRunner / WinRunner etc.
2) ClassIQ's product called IQTest
Mercury
I spoke with a Mercury representative today who listed for me several sites
which are successfully using Forte with Mercury (one of these sites is even
located here in Australia!). The problems described in the attached
message or accurate; however, the workarounds are documented and easy to
understand.
You can use Mercury today with Forte.
In addition, Mercury has been working for several months now on an even
tighter integration with Forte. This project has been extremely
successful. There is at least one Forte site in the USA which is using
this Forte/Mercury integrated product. According to the Mercury rep, the
Mercury/Forte tighter integration is now in beta testing and should be
production in May/June 1997. This information was verified by my contacts
at Forte HQ. If any of you need more detailed information than this please
contact me or your Mercury representative.
ClassIQ
ClassIQ currently has a small number of sites using its testing tools which
are written in Forte. Needless to say, ClassIQ is very tightly integrated
with the Forte environment. If you would like to know more about ClassIQ
contact Joe Burns at 105210,[email protected].
I am sure there are many other people using other testing tools with
Forte....these are just the two I have heard about in the initial responses
to my query. I would love to hear about other testing tools which work
well with Forte.
Regards,
Eric
At 11:19 AM 2/19/97 +0530, you wrote:
Hi,
We evaluated quite a few test tools in relation to the forte
environment. All of them have the same problem : The inability to
correctly map Forte widgets. Most of them cannot recognise
Outlinefields, ArrayFields etc. Even if they do recognise a forte widget
only basic properties like the size of the widget, its position on the
screen etc. are recorded. Data contents of the widget are not
recognized.
To clarify the above points : Given a screen with a TextData widget, you
can record and playback this sequence without any problems with most
Test tools :- Position the mouse on the widget, Type 'Testing' .
Ideally, the TextData widget should have a property 'Content' or 'Value'
(different test tools call it differently) which will have the value
'Testing'. In case of forte this does not happen. What is recorded are
the low level mouse movements or keyboard strokes. The position on the
screen where the value is typed is recorded and played back.
Low level recording maybe acceptable in some circumstances but say - you
have a widget which gets populated by a database query. How will you
test the values displayed ?
Some of the test tools are customizable i.e. you can actually create a
widget class of your own and try to map it to a recognized (by the Tool)
widget class. This will be a time consuming process with a great deal of
trial and error and no guarantees of success.
If the sole objective is navigate through screens and record and
playback, then most of the automated test tools work. If you want to
make full use of a test tools capabilities and want to go further and
intelligently record and playback, most test tools have very very
limited use.
Discussions with Test tool vendors have revealed the following :
- Forte has not released a Test API to any particular vendor or the
market at large
- Forte implementation sites are at the moment too few for any test tool
vendor to invest in Research and Development and come out with a Test
API.
So as it goes the chances of a fully compatible Forte test tool in the
near future are remote.
Forte's own AutoTester project has a limited usage. My own evaluation is
that it cannot be used for big sized implementations. Along with other
limitations, test management facilities that are particularly relevant
for big sized implementations simply don't exist with AutoTester.
The only product in the market that is Forte specific and is more a
testing Framework than a tool is TestIQ from ClassIQ. I am keen to get
information about TestIQ from any of its implementation sites. Again I
am not sure about its test management capabilities.
Hope the information helps,
Parvathi Iyer,
[email protected]
From: David Campbell[SMTP:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 1997 2:08PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Development tools
Hi all,
We are about to embark on a sizable Forte development and are interested
in hearing from anybody who has successfully used automated test tools
with Forte. Also, does anybody know of a problem tracking tool that can
be linked to the Forte source repository for the purpose of tracking the
status software bugs, fixes etc.
Thanks,
David Campbell
System Consultant
CSC Australia
From: [email protected][SMTP:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 1997 11:58 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Automated test tools
I've read about Capture/Replay and played with the AutoTester project a
little. I'm curious as to the experiences that developers have had with
using these tools to automate testing of GUI applications. Has anyone
actually deployed an application that successfully uses these tools? How
does it compare against other automated test tools?
One limitation that I see with using Capture/Replay is that any non-Forte
client interfacing with my Forte code would not be able to use this
mechanism to perform its auto testing. Also, while playing with the
AutoTester I actually got a playback which was slightly different than what
I did while doing the capture.
Thanks,
Jim Hancock
[email protected]
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Answer 1

Thanks for the news Nancy!