July, the 1st -> OHT is now cross-platform and works both in Linux (automatic preload) and Windows (using manual preload). There is one feature to implement: make "preload" to work in Windows. If you want to contribute, just email me or continue reading here

"Open HMI Tester" or OHT is an application framework for the development of GUI testing tools. It uses real-time GUI introspection to capture and simulate real user interaction, which enhances robustness and tolerance to changes during testing stage.

OHT provides a cross-platform, open design to support major event-based GUI platforms. Furthermore, it can be integrated into ongoing and legacy developments due to it being not code-intrusive. As a result, the framework provides an adaptable, extensible, scalable, and robust basis to support the automation of GUI testing processes.

OHT is open-source and ready to use. It is cross-platform as well. Versions working in Qt-Linux and Qt-Windows environments are provided in this repository.

Want to contribute?

Please, check open enhancements here!!

Requirements / Compile & run OHT

OHT compiles with many different combinations of Qt and Boost libraries. Anyway, the authors suggest using:

Qt v5.x (we are using Qt 5.5)

sudo apt-get install qt5-default qt5-qmake

Boost 1.60 or higher

sudo apt-get install libboost-system-dev libboost-thread-dev libboost-serialization-dev

To build the project manually from Qt Creator (http://www.qt.io/ide/, recommended), follow these steps:

Open the build_all_* project.
Build qt_*_hmi_tester project.
Build qt_*_lib_preload project.

* means the operating system we are building OHT for.

Moreover, an Ansible script (https://www.ansible.com/) is provided to compile and run OHT automatically. It automates:

installing requirements/dependencies
downloading this repository
compiling sources
run HMI Tester (the testing app of OHT)

To execute it, just copy the file download_compile_run.ansible.yml to an empty directory and execute the following command:

ansible-playbook -i "localhost," -c local ansible_ubuntu.yml -K

OHT in action

Recording and playing desktop test cases

With OHT you can create test cases for your application. Then, test cases can be replayed one by one, or all in a row.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiwPB8uwZOk

Recording and playing web test cases

With OHT you can create test cases for your webapp. Then, test cases can be replayed one by one, or all in a row.

OHT provides a free, easy and fast way to test your web, as well as to automate actions.

Note that this might produce unexpected results, as in the current implementation of the OHT, the test is recorded in the browser, not in the web page. We are working hard to provide a robust web-testing experience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Smcj3WmdPdQ

Cross-platform experiment

With OHT you can create test cases in Windows and play them into the same application compiled in Linux, and vice versa. Cross-platform testing is one of the strengths of OHT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WYmRFk7r7E

Robustness experiment

OHT can foresee missing GUI widgets, thus no actions will be executed for them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rXnRWQ9dts

Logs in the AUT for debug actions

Two logs are generated with the standard and error output of the Application Under Test (AUT):

oht_aut_stdout.log
oht_aut_stderr.log

They are located in the same directory where the OHT binary is located. This decision was taken in order to use a cross-platform location.

Please, note that lib_preload output is also included in these log files.

Content of this repository

OHT base architecture

common: includes common sources.
hmi_tester: includes implementation of the OHT controller
lib_preload: includes implementation of the library injected in the application to test.
build_oht_base: Qt Creator project to build the base architecture.

Qt-Linux OHT Adaptation

qt_linux_hmi_tester: implementation of the OHT controller for a Qt-Linux testing environment.
qt_linux_lib_preload: implementation of the injected library for a Qt-Linux testing environment.
build_oht_qt_linux: Qt Creator project to build the Qt-Linux GUI testing tool.

FAQ

How to adapt OHT to Windows environments?

In qt_linux_hmi_tester, find the class linuxpreloadingaction.h.
Create a similar class to support library preloading in windows.
In qt_linux_lib_preload, find qtx11preloadingcontrol class.
Create a similar class to "wake up" the OHT at application startup and start OHT installation process.

How does the injection + preloading process works?

The class doing DLL injection before application launching is called LinuxPreloadingAction (extends PreloadingAction) and it is in the HMI Tester. In Linux, it uses the environment variable LD_PRELOAD to set the library to be preloaded before target application launching.
The class deploying the OHT services into the target application is QtX11PreloadingControl (extends PreloadingControl) and it is in the Lib Preload. In Linux, it uses QWidget::x11Event in Qt4, or QWidget::nativeEvent in Qt5 to "automatically wake up" and start deploying event consumer and executor.

If I try to open and build the build_oht_qt_win.pro I get these messages:

cannot find -lboost_serialization-mgw49-mt-d-1_60
cannot find -lboost_thread-mgw49-mt-d-1_60
cannot find -lboost_system-mgw49-mt-d-1_60

You need to correctly reference Boost libraries:

in common/common.pri, add correct Boost includes at the end of this file.
change the name of all includes from -lboost_system-mgw49-mt-d-1_60 to -lboost_system-<your-compiler-version>-1_60. Remember that Boost libraries have to be compiled with the same compiler used by Qt (mingw in this case).

I cannot compile `build_all_*.pro` project

In this case, try to compile projects independently:

Compile qt_*_hmi_tester project.
Compile qt_*_lib_preload project.

* means the operating system we are building OHT for.

I am running an application using Qt 4.8 + Embedded Linux without X server (there is QWS from QtEmbedded built in my application instead). Does OHT support this kind of setup?

OHT will support this kind of setup provided that you can "wake up" OHT within your application. With waking up I mean to find an event that is executed at your application launching, so you can handle it and start deploying OHT services.

In the Qt-Linux implementation, the class deploying the OHT services into the target application is QtX11PreloadingControl (extends PreloadingControl) and it is in the Lib Preload. In Linux, it uses QWidget::x11Event in Qt4, or QWidget::nativeEvent in Qt5 to "automatically wake up" and start deploying event consumer and executor.

So, you need to create and adaptation of this class (e.g., QWSPreloadingControl) and:

either you find a generic Qt4 event that executes at application startup, similar to QWidget::nativeEvent in Qt5
or you find a QWS event equivalent to QWidget::x11Event in Qt4

The AUT is crashing and I don't know why. Are there any logs to see what's happening?