Flex: Testing UI components at the click level?

Question

I've been working on a Flex component and I'd like to write some automated tests for it. The trouble is, the UI testing tools I've looked at (FlexMonkey and Selenium Flex API) don't simulate "enough":

Most of the bugs which have come up so far relate to the way Flex deals with dragging and dropping, which these libraries can't simulate accurately enough. For example, I need to test a case where there is a "drop" event which occurs in the bottom half of a component – neither FlexMonkey nor Selenium Flex API can do that (they may simulate a mouse event, but they won't include coordinates).

So, is there any "good" way to automate that sort of testing?

Edit: After much research, it looks like the only piece of software that can do this is iMacros, which is Windows-only and the interface is... Lacking. So I'm going to be writing my own. Basically, it will put an HTTP interface on java.awt.Robot so code (in any language) can simulate mouse/keyboard events. If you're interested, PM me and I'll keep you updated.

Edit 2: I have published the first version of the framework I wrote, Blunderbuss, over at BitBucket: http://bitbucket.org/wolever/blunderbuss/ . You'll need Jython to run it (http://www.jython.org/), but after that the flex-client example should work.

Videos of Blunderbuss live over at Vimeo:

• Automating Flex testing with Blunderbuss
• Blunderbuss test suite running

At the moment this remains a proof-of-concept, as I haven't had the cycles to clean it up and make it more useable… But maybe enough people bothering me would give me that time :)

Answer 1

I've never had to use it in Flex but i recently stumbled across some info on automation packages in the MS Surface SDK... after looking into it those classes automated user behavior which can be used for testing i.e. move a fake mouse to this point, perform this action. As you're using Flex mx.automation packages and classes. My guess (and hope) is that you'd be able to achieve what you want using these classes.

Answer 2

You could also try auto-hotkey - it is similarly a macro-editing program but it has proven to be very efficient and you can write scripts and set it up very easily.

Answer 3

I am definitely interested in your custom Java class, and (though I am not the best at Java (yet...)), I would be willing to help out if you're thinking of making this collaborative.

As to Flash MouseEvents. Unfortunately, there really isn't an accurate way to simulate the drag/drop experience in Flash. MouseEvents, when generated by the mouse, are handled in a very different way than regular events and while you could simulate actions by passing events into the handling functions, or by making the dispatcher fire a new DragEvent( DragEvent.DRAG_DROP..., it will not be the same as having the user interact with it. And for some functionality (like gaining access to the clipboard), nothing inside Flash will accomplish your goals.

To be honest, you're probably headed in the right direction -- using something which is not written in Flash to drive faked mouse events is probably your best bet.

Answer 4

I've used Eggplant to test Flash and AIR apps without having to add any hooks into the code. It's a great tool but it's quite expensive. It simulates a real user by VNC-ing into a system and uses image recognition - among other things - to interact with the app.