XAF - EasyTest Improvements (coming in v2011 vol 1)

As you know, XAF is shipped with EasyTest functional test framework. In the upcoming release, we made a number of changes in the EasyTest script commands. Several new commands were introduced, and the existing commands functionality was extended. The main aim of the improvements we made is to simplify testing of XAF applications that have both Windows Forms and ASP.NET versions.

Although XAF can produce Windows Form and ASP.NET applications with the same functionality, there are differences in their behavior. Previously, you had to use the IfDef EasyTest command to control test flow, depending on which application is testing. Commonly encountered issues are:

- To modify the current object in ASP.NET applications, you should switch the Detail View to edit mode via the Edit Action. There is no Edit Action in Windows Forms applications, as the Detail View is initially editable.

- The broken validation rules are displayed in a different manner. In Windows Forms applications, the ValidationWindowsFormsModule module handles broken rules and displays validation results in a separate View. In ASP.NET applications, the validation error messages are displayed as any other error messages in the current page via the ErrorInfoControl control (see Error Handling in ASP.NET Applications).

There are other differences in behavior, but the two above are most significant. The following improvements were introduced to a number of IfDef/EndIf commands in tests.

OptionalAction command introduced

The new OptionalAction command acts like the old Action command. The difference is that this command does not require the target control to be visible and active. If the Action is unavailable, this command simply does nothing. Let us consider the following script snippet:

With the new OptionalAction command, it can be rewritten in the following manner:

CheckValidationResult command introduced

The new CheckValidationResult command tests the validation results that are currently displayed. It supports both Windows Forms and ASP.NET representation of validation results (pop-up window and ErrorInfo control, respectively). The following secondary parameters can be specified:

· Message - optional. Checks the primary validation error message.

· Columns - optional. Considered for Windows Forms applications. It specifies captions of the DisplayableValidationResultItem List View columns to be tested. You can specify two Target and Description column captions, or a single 'Description' column. If the Columns parameter is omitted and the Info property specifies a target name and a description text, then columns with the "Target" and "Description" captions are tested. If the Columns parameter is omitted and the Info property specifies a description text only, then a column with the "Description" caption is tested.

· Info - optional. Checks validation results (rule target and description) of each broken rule. You can specify target name and description text separated by comma, or description text only.

· SkipUnexpectedErrors - optional. When set to True, disables checking the validation errors that are not specified by Info parameters. The default value is False, so the CheckValidationResult command execution fails when there are unexpected validation errors.

Let us consider the following script snippet that can be used to test validation results in previous version of XAF:

With the new CheckValidationResult command, it can be rewritten in the following manner:

Note a use of the OptionalAction command in this scenario. It closes the validation pop-up window in the Windows Forms application.

New capabilities of the HandleDialog command

Now, this command supports messages displayed via the ErrorInfoControl in ASP.NET applications. So, this script snippet:

…can be rewritten as:

Additionally, the HandleDialog command takes the optional Caption parameter now. You can check the active window caption in a Windows Forms application and the document title in an ASP.NET application with this parameter:

Another significant improvement is that the HandleDialog command supports browser’s confirmation messages now (for instance, displayed when executing an Action that has the ActionBase.ConfirmationMessage property specified). To test confirmations in an XAF application that was updated from the previous XAF version, remove the following line from the Application_Start method in the Global.asax.cs file:

ConfirmationsHelper.IsConfirmationsEnabled = false;

The FillForm command improvements

Previously, to select a value in a lookup field, you had to write the following code:

The FillForm command supports Lookup Property Editors in ASP.NET applications now, and this test can be much simplified:

The ExecuteEditorAction command improvements

Previously, to execute an action displayed within a lookup, you had to write the following code:

Now you can pass an argument to the ExecuteEditorAction command when testing Windows Forms applications. So, the IfDef commands are not required:

Wildcard support

You can use the question mark (?) and asterisk character (*) as wildcards in parameter values EasyTest commands. The ? wildcard substitutes for any one character, and * - for any zero or more characters.

Preceded ? and * with a backslash (\), if you test a text that actually contains these characters.

To test that an error message was not displayed, use the following code:

What do you Xafers think of EasyTest? Do you see anything missing?

Happy EasyTesting!

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