Visual Test 6 Bible

By Thomas R. Arnold II

Automate the Testing of Your Software Development Projects Harness the power, flexibility, and new functionality of Visual Test 6 to enhance the effectiveness of your testing projects. Using concrete scenarios and detailed examples, leading Visual Test expert and veteran trainer Tom Arnold guides you through the entire test automation process -- covering both the programming and project management skills needed to deliver high-quality Windows or Web-based software applications on schedule and within budget. Inside, you'll find complete coverage of Visual Test 6 Get a complete tour of Visual Test's IDE, toolbars, and utilities Take full command of Test Language's constructs, functions, and procedures Jump-start your test automation process with the Scenario Recorder Use the Visual Test Suite Manager to organize and execute programs Master file input/output, pointers, callback functions, and links to Windows APIs Learn about Visual Test-based monkey programs for testing your applications Use Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 to test HTML documents Find out how to test software across a network "A 'must have' for anyone wanting to get started quickly with Rational Visual Test." -- Ed Humphrey, Product Manager, Rational Visual Test "The definitive reference for Visual Test " -- Jeff Cope, Systems Engineer, Compaq Corporation Source code for all the examples from the book included on CD-ROM, plus: Video interviews with industry experts Dr. Cem Kaner and James Bach about software test automation RealPlayer 5.0 -- to watch the video interviews Richard Wartner's online Visual Test book ST Labs technical white papers and Test Now 2.0 add-on tool Evaluation copies of tools from TeamShare, Translation Craft, Seapine Software, and Soffront Software Links to some of the best Visual Test sites on the Web The complete electronic version of the book Shareware programs are fully functional, free trial versions of copyrighted programs. If you like particular programs, register with their authors for a nominal fee and receive licenses, enhanced versions, and technical support. Freeware programs are free, copyrighted games, applications, and utilities. You can copy them to as many PCs as you like--free--but they have no technical support. www.idgbooks.com System Requirements: Windows 95; Windows 98; Windows NT 4.0

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0764532553
• ISBN13: 9780764532559
• Release Date: December 1998
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 712 Pages
• Weight: 2.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.2" x 2.1" x 7.5"

Customer Reviews

Everything I needed, plus great bonus material

I can't begin to say enough good things about this book. 700 pages of material that covers the product from A-Z, and then some!The book starts off with a history of the tool, explaining how it evolved from an internal Microsoft utility to the version now owned by Rational Software. Next it goes on to touch on the development cycle and where automation should (or in some cases shouldn't) fit into that process. This section alone was worth the price of the book because it added weight to what I've been saying about how to approach automation effectively and RESPONSIBLY.It continues on to describe where everything is installed on the machine and why. Very helpful information especially for test engineers who are always ripping their systems apart. Break something in VT when mucking with your system and this will help you get VT running again quickly.The next section goes on to cover the entire UI, language and utilities, and gets the reader started with a simple coding example.Part III of the book is where the rubber meets the road: Building a Test Suite. Such topics as coding guidelines, determining what approach to take, starting out with simple test cases, and creating common (and sharable) utilities are clearly illustrated.The final section is for when you're comfortable with your automation and want to get into some advanced topics. Arnold goes into working with pointers, working with binary files, callbacks, linking into APIs, the works. He also discusses how to write scripts for running tests remotely on multiple machines over a network. Lastly, he talks about how to automate HTML testing using Internet Explorer.The appendices -- especially Appendix A -- are very helpful. Appendix A lists the entire Visual Test language (something that every "bible" should have). He even lists features and routines that aren't documented in Rational's own documentation! Tom also lists other sources of information, including this excellent discussion group he created that has over 1000 subscribers who help each other get the most out of the product.The CD-ROM not only has all of the code examples from the book (as you'd expect), it also has video interviews with QA experts (including Dr. Cem Kaner, author of "Testing Computer Software"). The CD even has Adobe Acrobat PDF versions of the book's chapters. Don't want to carry the book with you? It's all on the CD. Pretty slick. I've not seen many (any?) other books do that.Even if there were other VT books out there (and there aren't), this would be the one to buy. This guy has gone through the process and figured it out, and fortunately wrote this book to tell the tale.

great book, although the name does not match perfectly

When I started a new job in the QA department of a software company accompanying my studies, I hardly knew anything about automated software testing and test scripts like Visual Test.I was given the "Visual Test 6 Bible" in order to learn Visual Test. Within a few days reading the book, I successfully was able to write my first test scripts doing exactly that, what was expected.The book was pretty interesting to read, easy to understand, at least for me being an intermediate C++ programmer, and quickly leading to results.The only negative aspect of this book is the name, 'cos a book called "bible" should give a bit more in depth information, but since I currently am satisfied with the knowledge I gained by reading this book, I don't really miss it, just thought a different name could have matched better.

This book saved us and our project

Mr. Arnold's book offers both a helping hand for slow starters and a great jumping-off point for those that want to hit the ground running.We weren't certain where to begin so we bought this book and it helped us understand that there are times when automation makes sense and there are definitely times when it should be put on the back burner.When automation should be brought in to play, though, this book has extensive source code examples, a great language reference, and is encouraging every step of the way. He also points out key aspects of the product that aren't clearly documented by the software manufacturers (or not documented at all!).Thanks, Tom, for your great writing style and for making our jobs easier!

This is a great and only book about Visual Test 6

All you need to know to use Visual Test

Visual Test 6 Bible is a "must have" for Visual Test users.

Although this book is geared to new users starting out with Visual Test, even experienced Visual Test users will gather valuable nuggets of information. I particularly like how the author explains the use of Visual Test within the context of the software development process. Real world examples are sprinkled throughout which adds to its readability. I recommend this book to Visual Test users.