[TIP] Python GUI testing

[Geoff Bache]

On Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 11:26 PM, Mark Sienkiewicz <sienkiew at stsci.edu> wrote:
> Geoff Bache wrote:
>>
>> - the graphical aspect makes it very tied to particular environments,
>> so you can't change theme or window manager, and our UI needs to work
>> in multiple environments.
>>
>
> I think that the tradeoff of this system.  If you want to test in multiple
> GUI environments, you need to provide the picture snippets for each
> environment.
>
> In spite of this drawback, it can still be a net win if you don't have some
> better mechanism to get into the system.  Or even if you do, it could
> complement other test mechanisms because it works the same way the user does
> -- it looks at the screen and interacts with what it sees.
>
> I don't think that necessarily makes it the preferred mechanism to interact
> with anything, but I can see how there would be times when it would be
> useful.
>

I agree actually. If there had been less scary-looking bugs and it had
supported 64-bit systems it would have least made it into the "useful
for short-term, single-environment, one-person testing" category which
is still something we do, especially for non-functional tests. I
haven't discounted it and could envisage using it in the future in
this way.

>> - it didn't handle invisible regions, i.e. anything requiring
>> scrolling or tabbing didn't work.
>>
>
> I was assuming you would need to first make it click on the tab or the
> scroll bar to find the relevant part of the GUI.  One function I would
> really want is "click on that scroll bar until you see this thing".

Afraid I don't remember the details of this. I just dredged up my
"review email" from experiments a year or so ago.

/Geoff