Effective GUI Testing Automation: Developing an Automated GUI Testing Tool [Paperback]

Kanglin Li (Author), Mengqi Wu (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 26, 2004

Have you tried using an "automated" GUI testing tool, only to find that you spent most of your time configuring, adjusting, and directing it?

This book presents a sensible and highly effective alternative: it teaches you to build and use your own truly automated tool. The procedure you'll learn is suitable for virtually any development environment, and the tool allows you to store your test data and verification standard separately, so you can build it once and use it for other GUIs. Most, if not all, of your work can be done without test scripts, because the tool itself can easily be made to conduct an automatic GUI survey, collect test data, and generate test cases. You'll spend virtually none of your time playing with the tool or application under test.
Code-intensive examples support all of the book's instruction, which includes these key topics:

• Building a C# API text viewer
• Building a test monkey
• Developing an XML viewer using xPath and other XML-related classes
• Building complex, serializable classes for GUI test verification
• Automatically testing executable GUI applications and user-defined GUI controls
• Testing managed (.NET) and unmanaged GUI applications
• Automatically testing different GUI controls, including Label, TextBox, Button, CheckBox, RadioButton, Menu
• Verifying test results

Effective GUI Test Automation is the perfect complement to Li and Wu's previous book, Effective Software Test Automation: Developing an Automated Software Testing Tool. Together, they provide programmers, testers, designers, and managers with a complete and cohesive way to create a smoother, swifter development process—and, as a result, software that is as bug-free as possible.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Have you tried using an "automated" GUI testing tool, only to findthat you spent most of your time configuring, adjusting, and directingit?

This book presents a sensible and highly effective alternative: itteaches you to build and use your own truly automated tool. The procedureyou'll learn is suitable for virtually any development environment, and the toolallows you to store your test data and verification standard separately, so youcan build it once and use it for other GUIs. Most, if not all, of your work canbe done without test scripts, because the tool itself can easily be made toconduct an automatic GUI survey, collect test data, and generate test cases.You’ll spend virtually none of your time playing with the tool orapplication under test.

Code-intensive examples support all of thebook's instruction, which includes these key topics:

Building a C# API text viewer

Building a testmonkey

Developing an XML viewer using xPath and other XML-relatedclasses

Building complex, serializable classes for GUI testverification

Automatically testing executable GUI applications anduser-defined GUI controls

Testing managed (.NET) and unmanaged GUIapplications

Automatically testing different GUI controls, including Label,TextBox, Button, CheckBox, RadioButton, Menu

Verifying testresults
Effective GUI Test Automation is the perfect complementto Li and Wu's previous book, Effective Software TestAutomation: Developing an Automated Software Testing Tool.Together, they provide programmers, testers, designers, and managers with acomplete and cohesive way to create a smoother, swifter development process—and, as a result, software that is as bug-free as possible.

About the Author

Kanglin Li is a software engineer responsible for software development, testing, and deployment at Communication Data Services. He has developed applications in Pascal, C++, Java, Visual Basic, and C#. From 1995-2001, Li taught at North Carolina A&T State University. He is the author of Effective Software Test Automation (Sybex, 2004) and 14 articles and technical papers.

Product Details

• Paperback: 445 pages
• Publisher: Sybex; 1 edition (November 26, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0782143512
• ISBN-13: 978-0782143515
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #940,753 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Important Topic Not Given Full Justice, November 21, 2009

By 

frankp93 "frankp93" (Connecticut United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Effective GUI Testing Automation: Developing an Automated GUI Testing Tool (Paperback)

The major problems I've encountered with test automation are not technical but managerial: It's rare that those with the planning and decision-making authority have the neccessary understanding of what test automation is and how it fits into the development/testing cycle. It's not "sped-up manual testing" and it's not "record and playback", although it may contain elements of both and more. It's a development effort in its own right and needs to be managed as such.

I've used many of the major commerical automation tools and developed others in-house and none of them are the silver bullets their vendors (and in-house evangelists) claim they are. In the past, you would have been hard-pressed to make the case to management for writing your own in-house full featured GUI testing tool. It required a developer skill set that many in QA - even those on automation teams - don't always have in sufficient depth (not to mention the fact that, most who do have the skills choose to make more bucks over in development).

What the maturing of .NET and Microsoft's UI Automation Library have done, I believe, is put the writing on the wall for commercial UI test tools such as QTP and Functional Tester (WinRunner is on life-support, soon to be removed).

As more desktop applications themselves gravitate towards .NET and, increasingly, native 64-bit, commercial tools are struggling to keep pace.

This book demonstrates the advantages automation developers have in creating their own automation tools for .NET-based applications, thanks primarily to the close tie-in with the reflection namespace, UI automation libraries and COM interop serivces. The C# or VB.NET language skill set, while not trival, is not the same as writing C++ COM/ATL code, which would have been the only plausible option a decade ago to create an automation tool.

People coming from a script language coding background, preferably with some native Win32 programming in their past, should transition to .NET languages relatively smoothly. If they have a solid grasp of the differences between unit testing, integration and system testing, there's much in this book to apply both literally and to use as a conceptual base for creating an automation tool even more tailored to your specific application needs.

I don't usually comment on other reviews but I have to say the examples in the book worked just fine on my XP SP3 desktop environment, running the latest version of the .NET framework. Having been around software development and testing for 20+ years I'm sure that person's frustrating experience was genuine, but it's unfair to give all readers the impression the book contains bad code.

What the book does contain in abundance is painfully bad English. I don't say this with any disrespect towards the authors. I'm sure they are doing their best and, as someone who speaks only one language (and struggles often with it), I respect anyone who attempts to learn and use another, especially in a technical field.

My criticism is aimed at the Sybex editors, who really dropped the ball here by letting an important book out the door without adequate review.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Examples don't work, even with an expert trying hard to fix them., August 17, 2008

By 

Bradley Snobar (Bellevue, WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Effective GUI Testing Automation: Developing an Automated GUI Testing Tool (Paperback)

I hardly ever write negative reviews.
This book deserves one.

The book is almost entirely useless.
The examples plain don't work.

The authors of the book try to tackle a target that is moving around on them (windows API wrapped up by pinvoke on different windows platforms), and the results are not robust enough even to use in a cursory automation system.