[LDTP-Dev] LDTP 0.5.0 Released!!!

[J Premkumar]

Issue VI - 10 August 2006

We are provide to announce the release of LDTP 0.5.0. This release
features
number of important breakthroughs in the history of LDTP as well as in
the 
field of Test Automation. This release note covers a brief introduction
on
LDTP followed by the list of new features and major bug fixes which
makes 
this new version of LDTP the best of the breed. Useful references have
been included at the end of this article for those who wish to hack/use
LDTP.

LDTP developers had the privilege of participating in the Google Summer
of 
Code contest. Special thanks to the mentors of LDTP in the event
Varadhan 
and Emily Chen. We also thank Prashanth Mohan ('Casanova') for his
wonderful
contributions acting as student developer for LDTP as part of this
event.

LDTP Planet has been set up by Prashanth Mohan ('Casanova') for sharing
information
more effectively across the community. You can have access to the planet
through the 
following link http://ldtp.freedesktop.org/planet/


About LDTP
==========

Linux Desktop Testing Project is aimed at producing high quality test
automation
framework and cutting-edge tools that can be used to test Linux Desktop
and
improve it. It uses the Accessibility libraries to poke through the
application's
user interface. The framework also has tools to record test-cases based
on 
user events in the interface of the application which is under testing.
We 
strive to help in building a quality desktop.

Whats new in this release...
============================

+ Recording using LDTP
	This new version of LDTP features a recorder tool which would
help
in generating automation scripts automatically by recording user events.
This
would greatly reduce the time required for creating and maintaining
automation
scripts. Thanks to Venkateswaran ('whacko'), Harishankaran ('sp2hari')
and 
Theyagarajan ('Taggy') for making this happen. For more information on
this
please refer to http://ldtp.freedesktop.org/wiki/RecordHOWTO

+ Integration with Tinderbox
	LDTP has been integrated with the GNOME jhbuild. Using this
feature
one can execute test scripts automatically at the end of successful
completion
of package building using jhbuild. This was done as part of Google SoC.
Thanks
to Prashanth Mohan ('Casanova') again for his wonderful contribution.
	Please refer to the following links for more information.
* http://prashblog.be/2006/07/27/ldtp-integrated-into-jhbuild/
* http://www.0d.be/2006/07/25/integrating-ldtp-into-jhbuild/
* http://tieguy.org/blog/2006/07/26/little-bits-of-awesomeness/

+ Automation scripts
	* More than 70 new scripts for Gedit has been developed and is
available
for download with this release. Kudos to Lakshmi Narasimhan
('narasim_7') and 
'addict3d' for their excellent work. You can download them from 
http://people.freedesktop.org/~prashmohan/gedit/
	* New automation scripts for Evolution are being developed by
Prashanth
Mohan ('Casanova') as part of his SoC contribution. These scripts can be
downloaded
from http://people.freedesktop.org/~prashmohan/evolution/

+ Documentation updates
	LDTP documentation section in the LDTP web site has been updated
with 
the latest list of automation APIs. Thanks to our maintainer Nagappan
('nags')
for his contribution.

+ Bug fixes
	This version includes loads of bug fixes to address important
issues 
like memory leak, API functionality etc., For a detailed list please
refer to
release notes section of our project site hosted in
ldtp.freedesktop.org. Thanks to
all the developers for their contribution.

Whats in Store...
=================

+ We are very pleased with the ongoing work on porting LDTP to ARM
platform by
people from Palm Source, China. One of their latest contribution has led
to an Object 
Oriented LDTP approach. It still under development but you can hava a
taste of
this new recipe by following this link
http://ldtp.freedesktop.org/wiki/Object_2oriented_20LDTP

+ With Google SoC in full steam, we are awaiting more breakthroughs by
our LDTP
team participating in the same.

Downloads
=========

	LDTP package for different platforms can be downloaded from the
following
location
	http://ldtp.freedesktop.org/wiki/Downloads

References
==========

For detailed information on LDTP framework and latest updates visit
http://ldtp.freedesktop.org

For information on various APIs in LDTP including those added for this
release can be got from 
http://ldtp.freedesktop.org/user-doc/index.html

To subscribe to LDTP mailing lists, visit
http://ldtp.freedesktop.org/wiki/Mailing_20list

IRC Channel - #ldtp on irc.freenode.net

For suggestions to improve this newsletter, please write to
jpremkumar at novell.com