Re: Q: Designer, forms testing, automation

Malcolm Dew-Jones schreef:
> Frank van Bortel (frank.van.bortel_at_gmail.com) wrote:
> : DA Morgan schreef:
> : >
> : > I personally think of Designer as one of the worst places to build and
> : > test forms.
>
> : I will disagree with you on the builing part. Personally
> : speaking, of course :)
>
> There are lots of forms, they all work reliably relative to the
> definitions of what's in each form, so Designer seems "good enough" for
> all I care here.
>
> And no, the user in this case doesn't get much say in whether a box is
> mauve or not (suitably amused) - if a field is on the form, has the right
> length, etc etc, then it's good enough for the user to be able to do their
> job, that's all that counts here.
>
> The data has lots of constraints on what is allowed and who can do what to
> it, often depending on the values of the various fields. For example,
> which details can be modified about an item might depend on the contract
> with the facility that is storing the item, and what roles the user has,
> and what time of day it is.
>
> The code for that is all in designer as a series of constraints.
> Designer copies it all into the various forms, all is well, but are the
> correct rules then in the correct place in all the forms? and do the rules
> all interact correctly?
>
> It ought to be feasible to pull out all the code into a format that could
> be tested in some kind of batch mode, and then have reams of test cases
> that call the constraint code just like it would be called in the form, or
> maybe create a routine in the form to push values into the fields and then
> fire the triggers, or something. I will likely come up with that
> something over time, but first I thought I'd check for what existed.
>
Hmmm... interesting scenario - not to use after 5 o'clock then? Not while possibly intoxicated?
Back ot: all the tools I know of are (-quite expensive!-) gui simulators that will simulate mouse and keyboard actions, and possibly capture the results.
That would firstly give you the possibility to set up (repeatable) test cases, and secondly the possibility to log the results.

Checking whether these results are acceptable is yet another chapter - never done that, just witnessed this tool stress testing a (web based) set of forms by simulating up to 250 simultaneous users.
We did not really care about the results, just in response times.

-- 
Regards,
Frank van Bortel

Top-posting is one way to shut me up...