Monday 8 September 2014

The Growing Options for Mobile Testing

mobile automation testing, mobile app testing service, expert mobile testersWhen it comes to evaluation or testing of mobile devices, there is no dearth of options that are available. However, in spite of the considerable growth in the number of solutions of mobile testing, a significant extent of evaluation is done manually. This is mainly because of scalability and financial issues. Yet, another option that is seeing high growth in terms of popularity is outsourcing.

Then there is Crowdsourced mobile testing, which is an extremely low-cost version of outsourced mobile assessment. This particular type of evaluation comes up with flexibility. It also supports multilingual evaluation of a broader cross section of the devices. It is mainly used by the freelancers. This helps in cost cutting in a significant way.

With the requirement of mobile testing increasing in leaps and bounds, there is an ardent need for various options as well as strategies. As if in response to the growing needs, newer strategies are being developed. Today, it is possible to run all the emulators as well as in-house evaluations. Still, it is needed to conduct the evaluations in the live fields. With so many requirements coming up in the realm of QA, new ideas, options, approaches as well as tools are coming into play.

There is Gorilla Logic that has come out with the version 5 of FoneMonkey, which is famous for its open-source functional evaluation framework. Then there is another option – the uTest that is popular among the fraternity of crowdsourced evaluation. Another option is Selenium. This is actually a portable evaluation framework that is meant for the web applications. However, this can be modified to make it applicable for the mobile devices.

Apart from all these, there is the option of simulator-based evaluation, though this particular type has drawn criticism from certain quarters, and hence is generally avoided. There is a cloud based testing solution that conducts the Selenium tests, which takes care of the management along with the provisioning issues through the commodity hardware. Other options that are available are:

Apptimize: This one is designed to be used in iOS as well as Android. For the monthly active users, the framework will cost $50/month. The framework helps in updating as well as` changing without the need to resubmit at the App Store.

Leanplum: This tool is available mainly for iOS, PhoneGap, Android, as well as Unity. It costs $79 per month for the evaluators who use this tool. It also helps in visual editing of the applications.

Taplytics: At present, Taplytics is only available for iOS, and the cost of the tool is $20/month for the QAs who avail this tool’s help. Again, this tool also helps in visual editing of the applications.

Artisan: Artisan is available for iOS as well as Android. The cost of the tools is $1,000 per month for the users who take the help of this tool in an active way. Artisan is one of the two A/B QA frameworks that you will find as a part of the larger analytics package. Artisan also enables visual editing of your app.

Vessel: Vessel is available for Windows phone, Android, iOS, PhoneGap or HTML5. Vessel.io costs $150 per month and comes with a larger analytics pack, which enables visual application editing.

Swrve: Swrve provides an enterprise QA solution.

Arise: Arise is available for iOS as well as Androidand is available at 99 Euros for its active users.

Splitforce: Splitforce is basically a tool designed for iOS and Unity. The cost of this tool is $299 for the users who take help of this tool.

Optimimo: Optimimo is designed exclusively for Android and it available at $49 per month for the ones who use it actively.

Amazon A/B Testing: This framework is designed and developed on AWS, and is available for iOS, Android as well as Android Kindle Fire. It is an open source framework and is hence, free, with no limits as regards to apps, the number of team members and active users. To get maximum benefits of mobile testing, you may consider hiring services of a mobile automation testing company.

We provide mobile app testing service. If you would like to get your application tested by our expert mobile testers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

Sunday 7 September 2014

Is Appium the best choice for Mobile Automation Testing?

Appium testing, quality assurance testing, expert automation testersUsually testers have to learn several programming languages to evaluate the efficiency of a particular mobile app over various platforms. However Appium enables the experts for testing mobile apps with Selenium WebDriver. Therefore, they've choice to write tests by using various programming languages that works with the WebDriver such as perl, Python, PHP, Java, Objective-C, C#, Ruby, & JavaScript with Node.js. Additionally, they may choose any kind of testing framework to improve the speed as well as the ability of the testing work. Several organizations depend upon open source testing automation tools such as Appium for automation both the native & hybrid mobile apps. Currently, Appium is supporting many platforms such as iOS, Android & FirefoxOS. Therefore, the developers could easily automatighte both the native & hybrid apps by focusing on various platforms. Additionally, Appium also is considered as very flexible in the mobile app automation.

The user even have choice to get the advantages of Appium Inspector, a record & playback tool for automate the native apps. This particular tool is created in an approach much to Selenium IDE for the Web browsers. This generates test scripts based on the steps carried out in inspector. Appium may even check the DOM, and also generate test scripts in the programming language chosen from the user. But, the Appium Inspector isn't compatible in Microsoft Windows currently. Being an HTTP server, Appium works well in creating & handling WebDriver sessions. It could additionally create & handle several WebDriver sessions for many platforms such as iOS & Android. This tool could be used to begin a test case on a device which starts communication from the server, and also gets proxy commands by the primary Appium server. Then again, the manner and the mechanism in order to run test case in the device is different in each mobile platform. Hence it runs the test case simply by listening the commands by the server. Monkeyrunner alternatively is an API built on Python, enables to generate programs that can manage certain devices with the user point of view.

Some other testing frameworks found currently are Robotium & Robolectric. Robotium runs tests within emulators for all those against Android API. On the other hand Robolectric is an unit test framework. This runs within IDE. One more testing framework is called Espresso which is used for the certain purpose. This is an API used in order to test against the Android UI. Yet another well known testing framework which has been preferred for many years known as Flurry. For those who would like to get a report and detailed crash reports, can choose Flurry. Although the above testing alternatives are great, while building a hybrid app, you may not be able to utilize those at all. When you are in for the cross platform automation framework that can help you building tests in whatever language you want both for Android and also for iOS, you may then opt for Appium.

Stephen Janaway is a Test Manager by profession. He works on mobile & web testing, test automation & software delivery optimisation. He has mentioned in a blog that he has used Appium and found it to be good. Since it went to version 1.0 it seems to have become more stable. He further stated that the important fact in mobile automation currently stands where it had been since five to six years back with web automation. There are plenty of solutions, few works better than the other, few are better supported than the others, and few are high priced than the others. He stated that they opt Appium simply because it is cost-free as well as it is open source, it features a well-supported and active Google group, it doesn't need anything to be installed in the device and no server or even code changes not required, it works with the two Android & iOS. It is more challenging to carry out some gestures, and others compared to several of the other solutions available that we piloted Calabash that was good in this respect, he concluded. To get maximum benefits of testing, you may consider hiring services of a Appium testing company.

We provide quality assurance testing services. If you would like to get your application tested by our expert automation testers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

Monday 1 September 2014

QuickTest Pro and its frameworks - An Insight

custom QTP testing company, quicktest pro testing services, certified QTP testersQuickTest Pro (QTP) can be defined as Unified Functional Test or UFT software that is specifically designed as well as developed to deliver various automatic testing for different software applications or domains.

Alternatively, it can also be said that QTP is a framework for test automation, which sets a series of guidelines for the developers to follow while scripting, with a view to achieving the intended results.

The guidelines that QuickTest Pro sets for its users include the following:

1:|| Setting coding standards.
2:|| Structuring the data sheets along with determining the way the workbooks along with each and every sheet under them can be grouped.
3:|| The structure of the folder that needs to be followed for storing the test scripts, the reusable libraries, the results of the test runs and so on.
4:|| The way the results of the test need to be stored as well as displayed and whether there is any need to save the test runs in a separate way. If so, how.
5:|| THE QTR also shows the way the team members need to access shared libraries, not the mention the ways they need to be updated.

The Salient Features

Let us now discuss the salient features of QTP and its framework.

The framework needs to be designed in a specific way, to ensure that it comes to the aide of the developers, while achieving maximum possible re-use. For instance, in case any code is to be reused more than once, a separate function needs to be created for that particular code so that the function can be called up whenever there is a need to do so subsequently.

The codes need to be easily understandable and user-friendly so that they can be maintained without any hassle whatsoever. This is very important as whenever a framework is used for a fairly long period of time, it is natural that different people will take part in the ongoing project from time to time. Hence, it is important that the framework is structured in such a way that people who just join do not find it difficult to ascertain the flow of work or what has been going on.

A good framework should also contain a good data parametrization, which makes sure that the test data should be separated from the codes. This also ensures that the same code can be used multiple times for different data sets.

It is also imperative that the results of the tests make sense. At the same time, it is important for them to be easily understandable. This helps in providing results that are detailed as well as high end. Another advantage of this is that in case the client is not interested in detailed results, it becomes possible to provide just the scripts that which contain information about the cases have passed the test along with the ones that have not.

It is also important to employ appropriate mechanisms for error handling. One option can be to provide screenshot for the cases that have failed the evaluation.

In cases when the evaluation scripts are running in batch mode, the framework needs to provide a choice by the virtue of which, in case a script fails to pass an assessment, the framework will roll out of the script automatically instead of getting stuck there, with a view to execute the subsequent assessments.

There should also be the provision of automatically sending emails and SMS, once the execution of the test scripts is done with. This feature needs to be configured in a way so that the as soon as the execution is over, the framework will by default send a message to the stakeholders about the completion. However, the mail can also include the test results so that there is no need to send the results in a separate email. To get maximum benefits of testing, you may consider hiring services of a custom QTP testing company.

We provide Quicktest pro testing services. If you would like to get your application tested by our certified QTP testers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

Why the Rise in Use of Selenium?

selenium automated testing, selenium web application testing, selenium testerA number of recent reports have highlighted the rise in the use of Selenium as a software testing framework for internet applications. Despite being a portable framework, Selenium enables QA engineers to write test scripts in a wide range of programming languages including C#, Java, PHP, Perl, Ruby, Python and Groovy. The testing professionals can further use the record/playback tool provided by Selenium to write test scripts without learning any new programming language. The open source framework further makes it easier for testers to evaluate the performance of a web application by running tests on some of the widely used web browsers.

Major Advantages of Using Selenium for Web Application Testing

Supports Multiple Languages and Test Frameworks

While using Selenium, QA engineers have option to choose their preferred programming language and test framework. At present, Selenium supports several widely used programming languages including C#, Java, JavaScript, Objective-C, PHP, Perl, Ruby, Python and Groovy. The programmer can further import Selenium client libraries into popular language IDEs like Eclipse, Visual Studio.Net and Net beans. Selenium also supports several software testing frameworks including NUnit, JUnit, TestNG, RSpec, Test::Unit, pyunit and unittest. Thus, it becomes easier for QA engineers to write test scripts without acquiring any new skills.

Facilitates Cross Platform Browser Testing

To deliver flawless user experience, QA engineers have to assess the performance of the web application across multiple browsers and operating systems. The testers have option to install Selenium as a custom Firefox extension. Selenium further supports widely used web browsers like Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari and Opera. At the same time, the framework also supports major platforms like Microsoft Windows, Linux and Apple OS X. So the developers can write the test scripts once, and execute those on several operating systems and web browsers.

Can be Used for Comprehensive Testing

Selenium can be seamlessly integrated with other test suites including QMetry, Hudson, Saucelabs and Selenium Grid. So it becomes easier for QA engineers to integrate it with their testing ecosystems. Despite being a portable testing framework, Selenium can be used to perform comprehensive testing including functional, regression, UI and UAT. The testing professional can further enhance Selenium and use the enhanced framework to carry out load testing, production monitoring and similar complex tests required to make the web application flawless.

Supports AJAX and TDD

A constant increase is being noted in the number web applications delivering richer user experience by using AJAX technologies. So the QA engineers are required to test the application by using a framework that strongly supports AJAX technologies. As Selenium supports AJAX technologies strongly, it can be used to assess the complex internet applications. Selenium can also be used to test the applications developed by using Agile and extreme programming (XP) methodologies. That is why; an enterprise can use the web application testing framework to adopt Test Driven Development (TDD).

Option to Access Selenium Ecosystem

The QA engineers also have option to access a large Selenium ecosystem that consist both open source tools and commercial services. For instance, they can access functional test services like BrowserStack, Sauce Labs and TestingBot to carry out Selenium cloud testing without putting any extra time and effort. Likewise, they can use Neustar to avail load testing and website monitoring services based on Selenium. The availability of open source tools and commercial services also contribute towards the rise in use of Selenium.

Reduces Testing Cost

Many enterprises, nowadays, opt for open source software development and testing frameworks to curtail overall project cost. Despite being a powerful and dynamic web application development framework, Selenium is still open source and free. Like Sahi and Watir, Selenium also allows users to avail the test automation framework and tools without paying any licensing fees. The low cost and open source nature of Selenium also makes it effective in bringing down the web application testing cost.

The QA engineers also have option to choose Selenium IDE or Selenium WebDriver. Selenium IDE is designed as a Firefox add-on to record-and-playback the interactions with the web browser. On the other hand, Selenium WebDriver can be used to create browser-based regression automation, while reusing the test scripts in multiple environments. To get maximum benefits of testing, you may consider hiring services of a selenium automated testing company.

We provide selenium web application testing services. If you would like to discuss with a certified selenium tester from our team, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.