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How I started using it (the panel)
Some time ago I started to write test scripts for functional testing of a project. The job that I actually do so often that I see almost no show stoppers, but this project was different… Unfortunately, the project was very unstable and when the set of my scripts was big enough, I found myself spending a lot of time on different small things.
I’ll give you an example on what I’m talking about. For example, you get a new build of the tested app and you need to quickly check what stopped to work. You run your scripts and go to take some coffee or switch to another work from time to time checking what is going on the screen where the test is being executed. From time to time, your boss come in and asks how the process is going. You know, today he wants to show the build to some big people and he nervous you every 15 minutes. And every time you must ask him to wait, which makes his face looking not very good and moving him forward close to infarct. But what can you say anything else if the results will be known only when the script execution is finished and the total time needed for its completion is much longer than 15 minutes.
Another good example is when you sit at your desk partially looking on the second testing screen and you notice that something goes wrong there. What usually do in this case? Stop the script and re-run? The last choice is not very good taking into account that the script execution was close to the end and your boss should come soon to learn the final results. How would you explain him that you needed to start everything over? And what about the case when you got a wrong opinion and the script is working in the needed way? So what is the best to do in this situation???
And I will tell you the answer! I never stop the script in similar situations and never wait for its final completion. I just re-run the needed procedure and see its results immediately without stopping the script and waiting something else.
I now also have such a nice thing as the way to control how my procedures are executed. Previously, I often needed to go to my script, comment “unnecessary” script code, uncomment other one before running my script and sometimes, when I finally had it running, I could find that I forgot to comment/uncomment something, so I was obliged to stop the script and repeat the whole procedure. Such things droved me crazy!!!
This is what forced me to find a sort of helper to prevent me waste time. I was lucky enough to find a guy who gave me a copy of My@LocVarPanel with a demo sample showing how to use. It was a pretty nice demo that helped me a lot and I quickly managed to adjust the tool for my needs. My variant did not look so nice, but it worked well that was enough for me J. The big attraction I found in My@LocVarPanel that it is compiled as an Open Application which makes it quite easy to program controls on the panel. For my needs I created a set of checkboxes corresponding to every executed procedure and added one memo field where the results have to be written. As the result, now I have a very good way to check whether a procedure must be run: just verify whether the corresponding checkbox is set or not. The same is with the results: if a procedure has been executed, I immediately see its results in the memo while the script is still being executing. If I don’t like its result, I activate its checkbox to make sure that it will be run again. What is more, I can change the values of the local variables to let the procedure to run with different parameters. What is most exiting thing in this is that all this can be done ON-THE-FLY without having the need to restart the script!!! So now I feel myself much better when I see my boss wanting to know of the progress. What is more, I believe, my scripts or I would never be the reason of his infarct and I’m seriously thinking of asking him for my salary raise J. What I find a very useful as well is that My@LocVarPanel includes its own control designer, which helps to start using it very quickly.
As the final note, I confirm that the tool is very useful to QA guys and it looks as if the author had a lot of “fun” in the situation I described which pushed him to create this outstanding helper. I suggest to all whom reading this text to spend some time in checking all other tools offered by the author. They may help us feel the gaps in our work.
Keep up a good work and good luck in creating new useful tools!
Alex T.
Automated Smoke-Tests programmer
and the best friend of the My@Suite developers team.
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