Re: Suggestions for Testing Framework for the masses

Hi Jeanne,

thanks for your feedback.


On May 24, 2012, at 8:00 AM, Jeanne Spellman wrote:

> I get the feeling that I am one of the first non-programmer, Windows-users to work with the new testing framework. :)  I appreciate all the help to get me started. Overall, the documentation is good and clear to follow.
> 
> I suggest that you use my stumbling points as a way to identify what other chairs and editors may run into.
> 
> 1) Specification import:  There needs to be a webUI to import spec data from specs with complex numbering.  The current spec import UI cannot handle any of the WAI guideline-oriented specs, or any spec using a letter-number combination.  Changing the way a spec is formatted - especially a spec with a long history - can become a contentious distraction to a WG.  It's faster to add flexibility to the testing tool, then to get a WG to reach consensus on a new look to their document.  :) Providing options for formats, or simply allowing a webUI import of a data file with the spec info would be helpful.

I will soon be re-writing the specification import code to let it identify valid link targets beyond secant headings. When I get to that I'll make sure it can handle the WAI specs as well.

> 
> 2) Importing a manifest file: Perhaps there is a better way to do it, but I was managing my manifest list in a spreadsheet.  Exporting the spreadsheet to tab-delimited text automatically put "" around each string.  The manifest import webUI could not handle that. It's a minor thing (I hope) but making sure that the manifest import can handle the output of major spreadsheets would be very helpful.  I used Open Office Calc, but I'm pretty sure I remember MS Excel also putting quotes around strings when exporting to a text format.

The framework was initially built to import manifest files as generated by the CSS test suite build code. I'm working on making that build code more generic so it can be used with other specifications and test suites. When that's done all the manifest generation will be automatic.

The build code also generates human readable index pages for the test suite and performs optional format conversions (XHTML->HTML, HTML5->XHTML, etc).

Peter

Received on Thursday, 24 May 2012 16:41:42 UTC