by technology » Thu Jun 19, 2008 11:08 am
It's true that a number of desktop based products could perform
this kind of functional testing. What's different here is that the
solution described uses a fundamentally different test system
architecture: these tests run entirely inside the eValid browser.
This approach to testing and analyzing web browser enabled
applications -- putting the test recording and playback activity
inside the browser -- is novel enough that we recently were granted
a patent on it.
What this technology does is bring the functional and performance
testing of something as complex as the Gmail application into a
different context. Many technical and user-level advantages arise
from the unique eValid architecture, including (briefly):
Tests are DOM based (not COM based).
Tests play with very high efficiency (very low system overhead).
There can be multiple instances of the test execution, making
server loading simple and highly realistic.
The test playback is based on generalized features of the page
(e.g. where is the To: button?), and is very tolerant of
inconsequential page variations.
The goal of our example is to illustrate that at the current level
of development, eValid is able to do relatively easily what other
methods can do only with a great deal of difficulty.
That looks like a win for simplicity, productivity, and efficiency.
And, please make no mistake about the technical difficulty of
creating a simple-to-use, efficient, and universal web application
test system -- that has been a highly intellectual process involving
years of work and a great deal of experimental work.
eValid Tech Support Team
