News
New tool automates presentation layer testing
- By Linda L. Briggs
- January 27, 2005
Mercury and Infragistics Inc. have teamed up to offer a new testing tool. TestAdvantage 2004 Volume 3 allows automated testing of the presentation layer in Microsoft Windows Forms applications with user interfaces developed using .NET and Infragistics' NetAdvantage toolset.
TestAdvantage extends Mercury QuickTest Professional, an enterprise testing solution, to support Infragistics' NetAdvantage presentation layer toolset. To use TestAdvantage, companies must be running both QuickTest Professional 8.2 and QuickTest Professional .NET Add-In 8.2, or later versions.
The new product is a collection of custom libraries built using Mercury QuickTest Professional's .NET add-in extensibility. It uses knowledge of the NetAdvantage Windows Forms object model to extend regression testing to the presentation layer.
Dan Wagner, a systems analyst with Farm Credit Services of America in Omaha, Nebraska, beta-tested the new product over several months after eagerly awaiting it. "It's really important for us because we do a lot of iterative releases, [one] about every three months," Wagner said. To fully regression-test each new release, he said, is a huge effort, especially since the company has no dedicated testing team. "With TestAdvantage, I've been able to automate most of our large Windows .NET appraisal application in a few days," he said.
The company employs 17 developers using Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003. Wagner's been using the beta version for several months to automate the testing of a large Microsoft Windows Forms .NET application that has product updates every few months.
Automation testing tools can offer big savings. "We normally go through weeks of testing" every three to four months with each new software release, Wagner said. Over a year, he said, TestAdvantage could save his company 500 to 1,000 hours of testing time. "When I found out about [the new product], I wanted to do a backflip."
TestAdvantage 2004 Volume 3 will cost $2,995 with subscription and priority support (includes all new products, updates and upgrades added for a year, plus priority phone and online support). The product begins shipping in January 2005 and can be purchased via the Internet or as a boxed product. Infragistics will license it on a per-computer basis; it's available in packages of 5 or 10 seats and up.
About the Author
Linda Briggs is a freelance writer based in San Diego, Calif. She can be reached at [email protected].