Software Testing Tools Blog – Testertools

Gorilla Logic,  www.gorillalogic.com , a leader in enterprise application development services and creators of open source test tools for mobile and Rich Internet Applications (RIA), today announced FoneMonkey www.gorillalogic.com/fonemonkey for Android, its latest open source automated testing tool for mobile applications.

The new Android testing capabilities complement the popular FoneMonkey for iOS (iPhone and iPad) automated testing tool and extends Gorilla Logic’s comprehensive open source automated testing solution set by bringing Android developers and QA testers the same recording/playback and test script generation already enjoyed by iOS developers. It benefits developers by providing rapid creation of functional testing scripts; allows testers without in-depth Android Software Developer Kit (SDK) knowledge to easily and quickly create testing scripts; and, offers increased application quality and faster time-to-market.

Specific features contained in FoneMonkey for Android include:

• Records and plays back user interface interactions with native Android applications
• Scripts are readable, maintainable and also can be created from scratch without recording
• An Eclipse-based control console provides easy creation and editing of automation scripts
• Scripts can be created and ran on an emulator or actual device
• Supports virtually all Android SDK UI components and gestures
• Is free and open source
• Provides automatic generation of extensible test scripts in either Java or JavaScript
• Offers ability to run tests in continuous integration environments

“With an explosion of mobile applications in the market and a number of automated software quality offerings existing (and more evolving) for performance testing for mobile applications, the manual effort involved in functional testing remains significant and very costly,” said Melinda Ballou, project director for IDC’s Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) service. “As companies increasingly put their brand out on mobile platforms and as business critical apps ‘go mobile,’ automation of functional testing across mobile platforms – including both iOS and Android – becomes key for business innovation and success.”

Gorilla Logic’s passion for delivering quality software applications for enterprise customers led to the creation of FoneMonkey. It is the only test tool for iOS and now Android that records all actions with the iPhone, iPad and Android phone while in use and plays them back as a test script at any time. It enables the interactive creation, editing and playback of automation scripts that exercise an application’s user interface. Using FoneMonkey, developers and quality assurance team members can create suites of tests that automate and perform user operation sequences, and then verify results. FoneMonkey supports development as well as QA testing, and tests can easily be incorporated into continuous integration environments.

“FoneMonkey for Android addresses a major gap in the Android development tool chain,” said Stu Stern, president and CEO of Gorilla Logic and co-creator of FoneMonkey. “The FoneMonkey family of tools is the only record/playback functional testing tool for iOS and Android. With the addition of FoneMonkey for Android, Gorilla Logic has established its position as the pre-eminent provider of next generation functional testing tools for the mobile market.”

Learn more about FoneMonkey for Android at  www.gorillalogic.com/fonemonkey4android .

Wind River, a world leader in embedded and mobile software, introduced an Android test development kit designed to assist in the validation of the device user experience by reproducing human interactions to test user interfaces. Wind River UX Test Development Kit is an Eclipse-based test-authoring environment enabling the rapid creation of automated test scripts for Android devices, applications and browser-based web content. The automated execution of these real-world tests can replace a significant amount of manual testing and reduce testing time.

“Among the motives for why consumers return their mobile devices, a top reason is a disappointing user experience. By using breakthrough Wind River innovation to construct efficient testing tools to develop reliable applications and fulfilling user experiences, operators and device manufacturers can create greater customer satisfaction to improve the bottom line,” said Cristina Segal, general manager of mobile Linux testing at Wind River. “Wind River is changing the user experience test paradigm. Wind River UX Test Development Kit tests are reusable across hardware configuration and software versions, helping to decrease the effort to build test scripts for new use cases by as much as 70 percent. With access to automatic tests that mimic human behavior during software testing, developers can dramatically reduce testing cycles and time-to-market.”

UX Test Development Kit automated tests manipulate the device like a real-world user by interacting with applications through the user interface. For example, a quality assurance engineer can automate scenarios to test the user experience when interacting with graphic interface elements such as dragging items or typing entries on a physical or virtual keyboard. Unlike legacy user interface testing solutions, the same test script can be used for Android devices with different hardware characteristics, allowing the quality assurance team to maintain the same test-case database whether the device under test is a smartphone, tablet or any other Android device. Test scripts authored using UX Test Development Kit are fully managed and automatically executed using Wind River Framework for Automated Software Testing (FAST) for Android, a comprehensive automated software testing solution for Android-based devices.

UX Test Development Kit includes abstract tests for standard Android applications such as browser, camera, contacts, media player and e-mail as well as sample test scripts for Android Market applications such as Google Maps, Facebook and Twitter. UX Test Development Kit also allows the rapid creation of test scripts that interact with HTML5 applications and web pages through the native Android browser. To facilitate troubleshooting, UX Test Development Kit tests also run an advanced debugging mechanism to track and more readily identify software issues.

A video demonstration of Wind River UX Test Development Kit can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhXMiit4Abo .

Wind River also launched the latest version of Wind River FAST for Android that can be used to test any Android-based device. Wind River FAST for Android offers new features that deliver easier handling and greater insights into the devices under test. Key features include the following:

– FAST Android Score, a benchmarking index that assesses a device’s performance via a quick comparison against Android reference devices, rapidly generates a score from a series of tests, incorporating the key performance driving components of an Android device, without having to run the entire set of FAST tests.

– Easy-to-use wizard tools allow quick board configuration and test creation.

– Monitoring features illustrate CPU usage, memory load and power consumption.

– Expanded set of test assets created to test battery life, update mechanism for Android, Stagefright media framework and additional audio and video media capabilities.

A video demonstration of the latest features for Wind River FAST for Android is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmwYnz92XkM . Additional information about Wind River FAST for Android can be found at http://www.windriver.com/products/mobile-linux/fast.html .

AppLabs, the world’s largest independent software testing company, is developing an automated test harness for Android-based devices. The company has a global development centre in Hyderabad.

In software testing, an automated test harness is a collection of software and test data configured to test a programme by running it under varying conditions and monitoring its behaviour and outputs.“We already have some tools through which we (AppLabs) are able to prototype and test iPhone devices. However, automated test harnessing at the Android level is still in its infant stage globally. Still in the development stage, our test harness is being built by incorporating an SDK (software development kit) and an API (application programming interface),” Raja Neravati, senior vice-president (global accounts), AppLabs, told Business Standard.

AppLabs’ new test harness would cut down on costs for its customers in terms of mobile testing. The harness would also make it easier to write games or applications and certify them, he said, adding the company was currently in discussions with various original equipment manufacturers to push the product.

“Android-based applications, devices and games are becoming increasingly popular and as the diversity increases, it opens the doors for testing services. The new test harness is primarily being targeted at the North American, European and the Indian markets, where it would be launched sometime in the next quarter. Once we see the output, we would file for a couple of patents for it,” Neravati said.

AppLabs, an authorised testing partner for companies developing games for Sony’s PlayStation and Nintendo and Microsoft’s XBox, operates a centre of excellence for mobile testing in Hyderabad. Of its total staff of 3,500, about 600 are dedicated to mobile applications and game testing.

Neravati said with the increasing acceptance levels for iPads and smartphones, games were becoming more prominent. The expenditure on software testing in North America alone is pegged at $60 billion, of which Asia-Pacific, as an outsourcing services industry, accounts for $13 billion. The outsourcing services industry has been increasing at 25-30 per cent year-on-year. “Though game testing currently accounts for 8-12 per cent of this $60-billion industry, it would take more precedence with an uptick in smartphone sales. India would grab a 70 per cent share in this market in the next four to five years,” he said.

The company currently derives 8-10 per cent of its revenue from game testing, with mobile and information technology software testing contributing the rest. “We expect this to grow to 20 per cent in the next two to three years, primarily driven by the diversity of Android-based devices,” Neravati said.

The fifth installation of specialist penetration testing Linux distribution BackTrack has been released, and its developers say its four million users won’t be disappointed.

The platform is built from the ground-up to be an entirely customised native environment dedicated to hacking and is used by Fortune 500 companies, individual security researchers and government defence agencies.

BackTrack 5, codenamed Revolution, still uses the Linux 2.6.38 Kernal and is built on Ubuntu Lucid. It officially supports  KDE 4.6, Gnome 2.6 and Fluxbox.

It can also be used on Android devices with sufficient CPU and RAM capacity.

The latest version supports 64-bit architecture and has been loaded with some 350 penetration testing tools.

Both 32- and 64 -bit images support forensics and stealth modes, which respectively boot forensic-ready and without generating network traffic

Intel subsidy Wind River, which sells embedded and mobile software, has introduced updated versions of its Wind River Platform for Android and Wind River (News – Alert) Framework for Automated Software Testing for Android “to help developers deliver Android devices to market quickly and reliably,” in the words of company officials.

Additionally, Wind River Platform for Android (News – Alert), a commercial software platform based on the Android software development kit, includes upgrade paths to future Android releases, company officials say, “including Gingerbread and Honeycomb to support a wider range of devices such as tablets.”

Michael Krutz, vice president of worldwide solutions and services at Wind River, said in the rush to develop Android devices, “device manufacturers must still contend with product development issues such as software quality and Android compliance, while also building distinctive and innovative products.” He added that Wind River provides software to develop Android devices “so device manufacturers can focus the majority of their efforts on the differentiating features that set their products apart from the competition.”

What this means is that Wind River Platform for Android now includes DLNA Digital Media Server (DMS) functionality. This lets an Android device act as a DMS and share its media files, such as movies, music or photos, with other networked DLNA-certified devices across a digital home. Calling it “a key differentiator for larger screen Android devices,” company officials say the Wind River Platform for Android offers a multi-windowing experience, “such as concurrent active application windows, windows movement, resizing and theme support.”

According to a report in EE Times Asia, Wind River reveals the Framework for Automated Software Testing (FAST) for Android -based devices.

Customizable for different silicon architectures, it can work across any device manufacturer or operator in need of testing Android software stacks. The test solution claims to streamline and automate the software testing process, thus reducing time and cost to develop Android devices, while improving software quality and stability, and helping users verify and prove compliance with Android Compatibility Test Suite, or CTS.

Targeted for operators, device manufacturers, independent software vendors and silicon providers who need to test Android-based devices, FAST reduces the time and costs associated with testing software by automating thousands of heterogeneous tests and then consolidating the results into a single uniform database, easily accessible using virtually any reporting tool. Thus, manufacturers can focus efforts and resources on developing features that will differentiate their mobile devices from the competition and verifying Android compliancy, instead of spending a majority of their development time on testing.

FAST tests span a wide range of categories including graphics and boot-time, interoperability for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, telephony and board support package tests. The company’s test library provides coverage of tested code from low level, middleware and up to the application level.

For more information please visit EE Times Asia