Testing Multiple Applications In One Test Case Using Separate Squish Packages

Automating more than one application in a single test case is doable but what if the UI technology differs? We would like to show you how to handle two applications in a single test case, using two different Squish packages and squishservers as well as advantages and disadvantages of this setup. Let’s get started.

Example Setup

We’ll use a Windows application and a website in this example since this is a common setup. The Windows example application is the addressbook example that is shipped with every Squish for Windows package. Having Squish for Windows and Squish for Web (+ browser extension) on the machine is set as a precondition.

Since we need a squishserver for each of the packages, we start them via the command line:

C:\Users\franke\squish\squish-6.4.1-windows\bin>squishserver --port=4444
C:\Users\franke\squish\squish-6.4.1-web-windows\bin>squishserver --port=5555

The squishserver handles the communication with the Application Under Test. In this case, this is with the web browser (website) and with the addressbook application.

Now we can begin to develop our test.

Information that is important for external squishservers as well as the Windows and web support need to be stored in variables.

    winAutName = "Addressbook"
    squishPackageWindows = "C:\\Users\\franke\\squish\\squish-6.4.1-windows"
    squishPackageWeb = "C:\\Users\\franke\\squish\\squish-6.4.1-web-windows" 
    website = "https://www.froglogic.com"
    squishServerWeb = 5555
    squishserverWin = 4444
    host = "localhost"

To be able to use the toolkit support of a different Squish package we need to change the environment variable SQUISH_PREFIX. That way, we can execute the test case from any package without a problem.
Setting the correct wrapper and starting the __squish__webhook as the AUT is needed to start a browser and inject our hook mechanism.

    os.environ["SQUISH_PREFIX"] = squishPackageWeb
    testSettings.setWrappersForApplication("__squish__webhook", ["Web"])
    ctx_web = startApplication("__squish__webhook","localhost", squishServerWeb)
    startBrowser(website)

For switching between the Windows-based application and the browser, two things are needed:

• Application Context, to send any kind of commands (e.g. button press, typing, etc.) to the right application
• Toplevel API, to bring the application into the foreground and set the input focus

   setApplicationContext(ctx_win);

 winToplevel = ToplevelWindow.byObject(waitForObject(names.address_Book_Unnamed_Window))
    winToplevel.minimize()

Sending commands to an application which doesn’t have the input focus could cause some problems. Therefore Squish provides a so called “Toplevel API” which helps to bring an application into the foreground, set the focus or minimize it. This does not work for web browsers.

Disadvantages

• You are not able to record properly on all used applications because of missing support in the Squish package that is used to execute the test script.
• Since multiple Squish installations are present, these need more storage capacity then a single package would need.

Advantages

• You can create a working setup easily on your own.
• Upgrading/Exchanging one of the used packages can be done without much effort.

Conclusion

Using separate Squish packages has it’s advantages and disadvantages but you have to decide on your own which way you want to go.

Instead of separate packages you can reach us and get a combination package. That way you only have one Squish installation as well as a single squishserver which can handle the different toolkits.

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