[Pyobjc-dev] GUI testing

[Dinu G. <gh...@da...>]

Ronald Oussoren:

> I haven't looked at this yet (SF is down for maintainence, and I'm 
> about to leave anyway), but this does bring up another issue: How can 
> we add tests for GUI features to our test procedures. The best way I 
> can come up with right now would be to build an application that uses 
> a lot of functionality and let the user browse through it. Such an 
> application would also be usefull as a demo on how to use Cocoa 
> widgets from Python.

Some stuff can certainly be done using NSControl.performClick_(sender)
which every interactive widget should understand. So you can fill in
relevant data into things like textviews, set sliders and so on, and
then make the final "Go" button be magically pressed. Eventually, you
need to read out the widgets or whatever else that should have chan-
ged.

I just tried this with simgle widgets and it looks promissing, but
it could also become very challenging for complex widgets like NS-
TableView, -OutlineView and basically anything deeply structured.

But if it works it would be a very furtile road to take, even maybe
for purely ObjC applications which one would test using PyObjC! Oh,
dear, if that ever happens...

Dinu

--
Dinu C. Gherman
......................................................................
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable
from magic." (Arthur C. Clarke)