Via Calvin, TestGen4Web is a new SpikeSource web testing tool. It records web interactions, saves an XML file and then lets you run them as a JUnit test (tell me if you have heard this one before). The twist is, the recorder is a Firefox extension.
Ok, Calvin points out one great point: if you are trying to support someone remotely on a bug, you can get them to record their XML log and send it to you. Thats cool. However…
Web Applications are more than just GET/POST these days. By the time you factor in AJAX, maybe Flash(/Laszlo/Flex) there are a lot more parts to doing a regression test than just the GETs and POSTs.
What I don’t understand here, is why we got so far as a Firefox extension that records the activities without getting Firefox as the test engine. It would seem a clever XUL hacker could record JavaScript events and variable values, DOM states and HTTP requests, and give you a test that really (and I mean it this time) works like a browser, because, it is one.
Firefox is used as the test tool too..
Once you record and serialize to xml, you can replay and use the same extension as your test bed, in that sense, Firefox is your test tool.
Or, if you need to automate it, you can generate HTTPUnit tests (wrapped around JUnit), or SimpleTest (php) scripts.
Selenium is an other tool where integration is possible to use the output of the recorder to run tests on other browsers like IE, Safari etc. for browser compatibility testing.
Disclaimer: I am involved in TestGen4Web development