for all your python experts

Hello everyone, wondering if any one has any information regarding using python as a GUI tseting tool, Any ideas links or advice is much appreciated ,

also does anyone reccommend any books that i can purchase regarding this topic

Python is ideal for testing GUIs. Have a look at wxWindows, Qt and Gtk. They're all very accomplished GUI toolkits that have Python bindings.

What you use depends slightly on your platform (Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac, etc.), what sort of GUIs you will be creating, what language you want to develop the real GUIs in, and a few other things.

hey thanks for the advice it will help a lot.The thing is ive decided to undertake a final project which is implementing a GUI testing tool using python on a windows platform and im getting a bit worried because ive no real programming experience. I guess i want to

1) know from an experts point of view if its possible to learn this language from scratch in a short space of time
and
2) does anyone have any advice or help they can offer

Does any one have any ideas to the type of thing i can test as i really am new to this and as much as ive been searching for ideas i have found very little

thankyou all

What do you mean by a short amount of time? If you worked full time on it, you would take a good week to learn Python and a GUI toolkit to the level necessary to make a reasonable GUI program. Even then, I find that it takes me months to get to grips with a new language, because I learn through experience, finding problems and their answers as I work with it, and over a period of time you become better and quicker at coding in a particular language.

Python is a very good choice to begin programming with, but you may find you haven't the time to meet your objective.

I'd suggest diving straight into Python first. "Learning Python", published by O'Reilly, is the best book to ease yourself into the language (and you may well find that difficult). After that, "Programming Python" is a good way to try out some more advanced things, or you can just set yourself mini projects, perhaps related to your GUI testing tool, to practice and learn Python. Then, when you're confident, tackle PyGTK or PyQt. PyGTK has better online documentation, whilst PyQt has a good book you can buy (the online version of the book has no diagrams and so is a bit confusing).

well its for a dissertation in my final year of a degree, im only 5 weeks into the year and i have a bit of time. I have a supervisor who is an expert in python so mayb he will be able to hold my hand a bit. Ive been looking at following the Extreme programming (xp) methodology when producig the tool. Would an example of a testing tool be a script that could allow switching between two applications by using a GUI interface, is this type of thing is what is meant by a GUI test tool??

Thanks again for taking time out to help me

I don't know what is necessarily meant by a "GUI testing tool". It could also mean a tool that will automatically test a GUI for flaws by simulating all the different actions a user could take with the GUI, or a tool that runs some kinds of tests and simply has a graphical user interface, or something else.

Python is a great language for beginners and experianced programers alike, i'd defiantly recomend it to anyone .. another good place to start learning Python (without books) would be the tutorial/intros on python.org

http://www.python.org/doc/Intros.html

I don't think you'll have much touble getting up to speed with the python basics.. it really depends how much time you have!



I wouldn't know about this one i'm not much of a GUI guy myself but my GUI testing i presumed you ment writing the GUI in Python (because of simplicity) before moving it over to say C++.. maybe you could explain this for those a little unclear on what you mean i.e. me

Edit: wow, even our GUI type expert guy (telex) is a little unclear on what you ment

Mark.

Sorry i probably have failed to clarify this proprely, what i mean is using Python to automatically drive an application. Which means that instead of an human tester having to try out an application (such as a website or, or access front-end GUI design) Python could be run to generate a log of stimulated usage, thus providing test data automatically
data (a trace of user experience) automatically.

This is basically, what i need to be able to do, thanks for the links i am spending a lot of time learning the basics of python at the moment its just i really need to get on the right track then it will be a great weight off my shoulders

After a little googling, I came across PyUnit, which should do exactly what you want. Look at these:

http://lcgapp.cern.ch/project/spi/C...ork-PyUnit.html
For general PyUnit info

http://www.opendocspublishing.com/pyqt/c5064.htm
For PyQt specific info, part of the book which you might want to buy or get your local/college library to get for the missing diagrams

Thanks very much for the info you have given me, especially for taking time out to search for me.

I have been reading through and i am getting a clearer picture. At the moment its probably a bit advanced for me so im gunna spoend more time learnng the python language but i will use the information you have found for me.

It would be best if i could design a tester for some sort of e commerce site. This would test that an e-commerce GUI worked correctly.

perhaps to test that something on one version of a site works well on another version of a site.

Thanks again. You a life saver

No problem. I'd be interested to hear how you get on once you get stuck into the more complicated things...