These are basically some notes about to a GUI testing strategy I have adopted over the last year or so with NUnitForms. I am not going into what NUnitForms are etc here (because there an old NUnitForms post here) so I am assuming that you have at least some (or willing to get some) experience with the open source library prior to reading this post.

For a basic test fixture, typically you will inherit from the NUnitFormTest class overriding the Setup method:

[TestFixture]
public class FormXyzTests : NUnitFormTest{ 
 public override void Setup() 
 {
  new VesselDetailForm().Show();
  Application.DoEvents();
 }

 [Test] 
 public void CheckBla()
 {
  ButtonTester goButton = new ButtonTester("btnGo");
  LabelTester statusLabel = new LabelTester("btnGo");
  goButton.Click();
  Assert.That(statusLabel.Text, Is.EqualTo("Done."));
 }
}

When you test a button click you create a ButtonTester and initiate the Click method perform asserts and go home happy that your GUI is in a working state.

In the interests of refactoring GUI test that can quickly get bloated if you are not careful, I have ended up creating “form testers” that are in turn inherited by the test fixture. The form tester sets up a particular “scenario” and provides control testers and other helper methods through properties, for example:

public class FormXyzTester : NUnitFormTest
{
 public override void Setup()
 {
  VesselDetailForm frm = new VesselDetailForm();
  frm.Show();
  Application.DoEvents();
 }
 public ButtonTester GoButton
 {
  get { return new ButtonTester("btnGo"); } 
 }
 public LabelTester StatusLabel
 {
  get { return new LabelTester("lblStatus"); }
 }
}

Now the fixture inherits from the form tester and the tests are more readable.

[TestFixture]
public class FormXyzTests2 : FormXyzTester
{
 [Test]
 public void CheckBla()
 {
  GoButton.Click();
  Assert.That(StatusLabel.Text, Is.EqualTo("Done."));
 }
}

As other form specific related test helpers are required I add them to this base class. If needed, I also split this further with another base form tester class with common functionality. Other things I have included in these form testers are the message box responders, logging, even reporting and facilities to take screen shots of the application as its testing. These all help make for some very robust GUI testing classes.

PK