mkambol/spoon-recorder

Spoon Recorder

A Kettle Plugin which adds record / playback capability for purposes of automating test sequences.

Overview

In "record" mode, this plugin writes UI events in Spoon to a structured file. Play mode can then run through the same sequence of events automatically.

"Record" mode treats double-clicks within a text area or table as a "verify" event, and captures all text in the control at that point of the sequence. Playback will then fail if the verified text does not match.

The plugin is loaded as a kettle lifecycle listener, initializing on startup. It's packaged as an OSGi bundle and can be installed by dropping into the karaf/deploy folder.

The primary classes in this project are

• SWTRecorder - handles recording of events, saving to file.
• SWTPlayback - Reads the sequence file and performs each event.

Technical Challenges

1. SWT does not have a top level hook to capture and respond to widget events. In order to dynamically respond to events in a changing UI, this project has a SWTTreeWatcher class which continuously walks the composite trees in each shell.

2. There is not a unique identifier for widgets. In order to reference widgets within a playback file, the plugin requires some method of identification.

   WidgetKey is an imperfect workaround. WidgetKey objects contain the text, classname, and index of a UI control, along with its parent widget key. The key is not guaranteed unique. For example, controls can be dynamically added/removed, which can change index over time. Looking for ways to tighten up the key.

3. The SWT API does not lend itself to general purposes retrieving and setting of values within controls. Reflection is used as a dark-magic workaround.