Re: Unit testing Gtk+ applications

[Stefan Kost <kost imn htwk-leipzig de>]

Hi Tristan,

we are using check as well. And currently we test the gobjects that represent
data-structure and logic.

There are in-fact two reason why I would like to try to remote control my gtk
app. Beware it is just a wild idea! I would like to save dialogs as png images
while iterating over the application. I could compare the images, just to signal
that something has changed (which not neccesarilly is an error). On the other
hand  these images can go straigh to the documentation folder (always having
up-to-date doc-images).

I know that testing a GUI app more or less boils down to the question what one
really wants to test. For us going over a series of selected scenarios, that
involve showing all the dialogs in the application would be already a good
thing. It increases confidence that the application will work ;-)

So to others: How do you approach that?

Stefan

Tristan Van Berkom wrote:
> On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 13:25:59 +0100, Stefan Kost
> <kost imn htwk-leipzig de> wrote:
>
> > hi hi,
> >
> > to avoid reinventing just another wheel - can anyone point me to projects using
> > unit tests for a gtk+ based UI. Something like using the application without
> > gtk_main(), injecting own events and driving the event-loop via
> > gtk_main_iteration_do().
>
>
>     I use check (check.sf.net) unit test framework for any lower level modules
> (anything "unit testable") and only functional tests for GUI stuff (i.e. all my
> custom widgets always come with a functional test program).
>
> I've found that main-loop or no main-loop, I've been able to run unit tests
> (i.e. some functions I'm unit testing are "meant to integrate into the
> GMainloop"),
> it really comes down to, "How does your unit test program know to fail if
> your animator is displaying garbled data on the screen or is not showing up
> at all ?" kind of UI situations that AFAICS are simply not unit testable.
>
> Cheers,
>                                                              -Tristan

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