General questions
What is keyword-driven testing?
Keyword-driven testing is a modular way of creating readable tests. Tests are made up of recurring actions, and for each of these actions, a reusable keyword is created. This makes it easy to create large tests by reusing keywords again and again. It also lowers the maintenance effort because changes at a central place update the whole test. Keyword-driven testing places importance on an initial planning stage, where the structure and design of the test are considered. A simple keyword could be clicking with the left mouse button on a component. A more complex keyword could be an application initialisation (waiting for components to appear, waiting for welcome screen to disappear etc).
Once the keywords have been planned, they can be implemented. The advantage of using GUIdancer for keyword-driven testing is that the implementation of keywords does not involve any programming effort, which saves time and resources. Once you have your keywords, you can combine them to form tests. It is also easy to create keywords after you have started writing tests, using our refactor function.
GUIdancer is installed with a library of pre-designed keywords, which you can reuse in your project to speed up test creation.
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What do you mean, there is no programming involved?
Many tools produce program code as the basis for automated tests (e.g. capture-replay tools) or require that code be written to execute the test (many keyword-driven tools). This approach leads to large amounts of time and resources being spent to modularize and parameterize code and/or to write actions in program code. The test automation quickly becomes a project with a huge code base, which itself needs to be maintained, and even tested! Test progress is slow and many projects collapse under the weight of the unexpected work.
Writing tests in code takes a great deal of time. The actions that are executed have to be platform- and application-independent and they should be high-level, so that the tester is dealing with more than just a series of clicks in the application. Really, to write tests in program code means taking the time to think about a whole framework for test execution, including synchronization, error handling and results.
As a GUIdancer tester, all this work is done for you. We have taken the time to design, create, maintain and test the code necessary to produce high-level actions which are understandable and usable by testers. Our actions are platform, application and toolkit-independent. They contain internal synchronization, error handling and deliver the results back to the tester.
The result is that test automation with GUIdancer is incredibly productive. No time is wasted writing code for the test execution. All you need is already available and tests can be created simply using drag and drop.
The benefits of the GUIdancer approach are:
- More productivity from the beginning and throughout the test project
- Testers are not reliant on the availability and input of automation experts or engineers
- Easy test creation and maintenance
- Readable tests
- You can start writing your tests before an application is available. This means that tests can run as soon as an application is ready, so you find errors earlier, when they are cheapest to fix.
- Tests are modular and well-structured from the outset. There is no programming work to do to make tests maintainable. Even the GUIdancer observation mode produces readable Test Steps, which are easy to combine into reusable modules.
- The GUIdancer actions are designed to be as abstract yet as high-level as possible, so that there are no unnecessary implementation details and no redundancy in tests. Similar actions can often all be tested with one keyword. This reduces maintenance and improves the flexibility of your tests.
- Writing tests before an application is available means that you concentrate on testing against the requirements, not against the implementation.
And, if you do want to add support for your specific components, you can do this using our extension mechanism.
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Is GUIdancer a capture-replay tool?
Although GUIdancer does have an observation mode to record actions in a running AUT, we do not consider GUIdancer to be a capture-replay tool, because tests can also be easily specified by drag and drop using our library of keywords. In addition, GUIdancer has various benefits when compared to capture-replay tools:
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Do you test GUIdancer with GUIdancer?
Yes, we automate our functional tests for the GUIdancer software (and for the actions we support) with GUIdancer itself.
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What is GUIdancer's main strength?
GUIdancer's main strength lies in its simple yet powerful reusability concept. It is common knowledge that tests, like software, must be well-structured and that structuring tests into reusable modules is the key to successful test automation. In GUIdancer, it doesn't matter how you work. Whether you start off by writing modules, or whether you record them with the observation mode, or create them later on, your tests are easy to structure.
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Is GUIdancer a load-testing tool?
GUIdancer is a functional GUI test tool. You can test business rules, order-dependent use cases, interface scenarios such as activation of buttons/text fields, and text entry/checking actions. The tests are all done via the user interface. GUIdancer is therefore not a load-testing tool.
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How quickly can I expect test automation success?
Once you have installed GUIdancer, you can expect your first tests to be up and running in a very short space of time. Even on the first day, you will have some basic tests for your application which form the start of a testing safety net which will grow quickly. You and your team do not need to spend time programming actions or functions in GUIdancer, because everything you need to write tests is already available. And because GUIdancer tests are modular and well-structured, even changes to your application or requirements should not slow you down.
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Is there a demo version?
The demo version is available through the Shop. A demo license grants full use of GUIdancer for 14 days.
To see demo animations of how the tool works, see our Resources section.
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