Connecting the Dots

I was just trying out CubicTest today. It is a really awesome tool for automation of tests through UI for Web Applications. It is implemented as a graphical plugin for eclipse. You can export the scripts to selenium core (HTML) or Watir scripts. And when you export the scripts the quality of the scripts are not like the XML generated by MS Word, they are good quality scripts. The tests can be run via the command line, thus making it easy to run in a continuous integration environment. I have seen dozens of UI test automation tools. I have used Selenium and Watir for at least a dozen products. But this tool is like no other. The only thing that I found was missing in the tool is the inherent support for a Test Object Repository. But that’s not a big deterrent. I am definitely going to use it for the new product we have started building.

I have seen a lot of times that when I report bugs for a product that we are building, the developers don’t really understand the problem. Some bugs are so subtle and some so complicated that it takes an essay and half a dozen annotated screenshots to cover them. And even then I get “So what’s the problem, I have no idea what you’re talking about” from developers. Reporting bugs clearly, so that the person who’s supposed to fix it understands it completely without doubts is not trivial. So I resorted to a more vivid representation – short movies with live screen-captures and voice. And suddenly the daunting task of writing an essay and seemingly endless capturing of screenshots and annotating them vanished. If you haven’t guessed it yet, I use Jing http://www.jingproject.com to do just that. Jing sits as an icon atop all windows and it takes just two clicks to start recording the screen. It produces an .swf file – occupying as less space as possible. I promptly attach it to the issue I create in the bug-tracker.
I have found remarkable success with this. The developers are happy and so am I.