[LDTP-Dev] Linux Desktop Testing Project editor

[Nagappan A]

Hi,

A nice post by Hari <http://sp2hari.com/>, Thanks for your nice post.

Want to use LDTP to test your application? Or do you want to automate the
actions you do often? Or are you a GNU/Linux user who want to show "magic"
to your friends by recording your actions and playing them back? You can use
LDTP for this. But one small issue with LDTP is that you should know the
LDTP Python API to write any test suite. But with the new LDTP Editor, this
makes your job really simple. A screenshot of the LDTP Editor is shown
below.

[image: LDTP Editor]<http://sp2hari.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/ldtp-editor.png>

This is a simple HOWTO for recording and playing back the recorded script.

*Installing LDTP. *

   - Download the lastest LDTP source code from
   http://people.freedesktop.org/~nagappan/ldtp-0.9.2.tar.gz<http://people.freedesktop.org/%7Enagappan/ldtp-0.9.2.tar.gz>
   .
   - Uncompress the file.
   - Compile the code using ./configure and make
   - If you don't have the access to install softwares, run the
   ldtpeditor file in the python folder
   - If you have access to install softwares, then run "make install"

Note:: After installing LDTP Editor, i when i tried to run ldtpeditor, got
an error saying

hari at hari-laptop:~/ldtp/ldtp-0.9.2$ ldtpeditor
(ldtpeditor:11130): libglade-WARNING **: could not find glade file
'/usr/share/local/ldtp/glade/ldtpeditor.glade'
Glade file not found

The ldtpeditor.glade file is present in the python folder. I got this error
because i compiled the code as ./configure. If i had done it as './configure
¨Cprefix=/usr', then i wouldn't have got this error. Anyway i copied the file
manually to that folder.

hari at hari-laptop:~/ldtp/ldtp-0.9.2$ sudo mkdir -p
/usr/share/local/ldtp/glade/
hari at hari-laptop:~/ldtp/ldtp-0.9.2$ sudo cp python/ldtpeditor.glade
/usr/share/local/ldtp/glade/
hari at hari-laptop:~/ldtp/ldtp-0.9.2$ ldtpeditor

After that when i ran ldtpeditor, it ran without any issues.

*Recording using LDTP Editor*

For this let us consider recording the actions performed in gcalctool.

   - First make sure Assistive Technology is enabled in your desktop. If
   you are not sure about this, open gnome-control-center and in that open
   Assistive Technology Preferences. You should have Enable Assistive
   Technologies checked to use LDTP.
   - If you are enabling Assistive Technology only now, logout and login
   again.
   - Run ldtpeditor and gcalctool.
   - Make sure both you have enabled 'Always on Top' or both the
   applications and both the window doesn't overlap with each other.
   - Click the Start button the LDTP Editor. All actions performed after
   this are recorded.
   - Perform actions in the gcalctool. Check out this
video<http://download.freedesktop.org/ldtp/movies/gcalctool-record.ogg>to
see the actions i recored in my computer .
   - After you're done with the actions in the gcalctool, click the Stop
   button in the LDTP Editor.
   - You can see that the 'Recorded Code' tab is updated with code as
   when you perform actions in gcalctool.
   - Click the convert button in the LDTP Editor. You'll see that the
   Generated LDTP Code and Generated LDTP XML tabs are filled with generated
   code.
   - The Play button is not working now. I wrote the patch for that
   yesterday night ;-).
   - Save the contents of the 'Generated LDTP Code' into a python file
   (for ex frisco.py) . Note that if the file name you specify already
   exists, then it OVERWRITES the filename without any warning.
   - Then run hari at hari-laptop:~$ python frisco.py
   - The actions you performed while recording will be played back again
   :-)

Currently the Play button in the LDTP Editor is not enabled. But you can
make it work by applying the patch mentioned below. I guess this patch will
be added to LDTP Editor in a week or so. So check the ChangeLog file before
applying the patch.

* LDTP Editor Preferences*

Using the LDTP Prefereces, you can control what all actions you can control.
A brief summary about the options given in the Preferences window.

   - Listen key events
   This option is not yet implemented. Checking/Unchecking this doesn't
   make any difference now.
   - Listen mouse events
   This option is not yet implemented. Checking/Unchecking this doesn't
   make any difference now.
   - Generate LDTP Code
   Only when if this option is enabled, Convert will generated to LDTP
   code in the 'Generated LDTP Code' tab. This is enabled by default when you
   run LDTP Editor.
   - Generate Data XML
   If this option is enabled, the LDTP Editor will generate data XML for
   the actions you perform.
   - Generate keyboard events code
   Generates code for the keyboard events you performed during the
   recording session.
   - Generate wait time code
   Calculates the delay one takes between each action during the
   recording session and generates code so that similar time delay is generated
   while play back.
   - Generate Memory / CPU statistics.
   The code to generate Memory and CPU statistics will be generated. You
   need to install pystatgrab and libstatgrab packages.

*Patching to make the Run button work*

   - Copy this<http://sp2hari.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/ldtpeditor_runbutton.patch>patch
file to your ldtp folder.
   - Runhari at hari-laptop:~/ldtp/ldtp-0.9.2$ cd ldtp-0.9.2
   hari at hari-laptop:~/ldtp/ldtp-0.9.2$ patch -p0 <>
   - Compile the code again and run ldtpeditor. This time after you
   Convert the Code, you can Run the code from the LDTP Editor. :-)

Note:: The generated code had many unwanted waittillguiexist. I saw
waittillguiexist("dlg0¡å) in many places. If your playback is stopped because
of this, remove that before running the scripts.
Sometime the resource will go high as the application map info is collected
from the application, so no need to worry.

If you find any issues regarding LDTP Editor, report it to
ldtp-dev at lists.freedesktop.org or nagappan at gmail.com or sp2hari at gmail.com

All patches are welcome. :-)

My comments:

You can use ./configure --prefix=/usr to avoid that glade file missing
warning.
Additional notes:

* After clicking record click 'Convert' to get the code converted in LDTP
format (It does some post processing, so its required)
* Click save button to save generated python script, if 2nd tab is empty,
then it will try to get the contents of first tab and store it in the file
you specify. If file already exist, it will *OVER-WRITE*
* control+c, control+v doesn't work
* Sometime the resource will go high as the application map info is
collected from the application, so no need to worry. With Thunderbird, the
recording really sucks
* You need to have GNOME 2.14 and above to use LDTP editor

Thanks
Nagappan

-- 
Linux Desktop Testing Project - http://ldtp.freedesktop.org
http://nagappanal.blogspot.com
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