Re: [TFUI] TDD of (ultimately) GUI app built atop a framework via plug-ins?

Thanks for that detailed post, Hugo.

A follow-on question for all:  have any of you TDD'ed with Eclipse (or any
other plugin-based platform, e.g., FreeRIDE or maybe even jEdit) where you
treated the GUI as a thin layer over a more command-line-oriented UI/API and
your TDD tests were written at that layer (Michael Feathers' "humble dialog
box" technique?)?


Al


--- Hugo Garcia <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 14:49:26 -0800 (PST), Al Chou <hotfusionman-/[email protected]>
> wrote:
> > 
> > I want to build an application that should have a GUI.  I want to build it
> atop
> > a framework like Eclipse or FreeRIDE that will allow me to essentially
> provide
> > the custom functionality I need by creating plug-ins for the framework. 
> The
> > app isn't an IDE or text editor, so I think I'm going to be stripping down
> the
> > framework to its core that supports plug-ins (e.g., start with Eclipse
> Platform
> > rather than Eclipse SDK) and building up from there.
> > 
> 
> Seems like what you want is to develop a Rich Client Platform
> application. If you use the latest milestone build (3.1M5) then you
> get the basic wizards that create the starting points for you. The
> lastest tutorials at EclipseCon 2005 has the latest startup pointers
> that are relevant to 3.1. Also the RCP homepage tutorials are a great
> starting place.
> 
> You can get all those links at my blog at
> 
> http://fitsterandeclipse.blogspot.com/
> 
> > I want to do TDD for this project, and I think the app should be usable via
> the
> > command line or some similar scripting interface in addition to its GUI.
> 
> Here it depends what kind of TDD you want to do. If you are planning
> on the black box type (aka junit) then you are in luck since the PDE
> comes with a juinit plugin. To use it, read chapter 12 of Contributing
> to Eclipse and onwards. Also Chapter 2 of Building Commercial-Quality
> Plugins.
> 
> On the other hand if you want to do functional testing then you are
> kind of in and out of luck.  There is basically only one tool for now,
> Abbot at http://abbot.sourceforge.net/ BUT there are certain caveats
> in using it: 1) You have to limit your development testing to windows
> version since it doesn't quite work with GTK yet and 2) in order to
> use it you have to use a hacked version of the SWT distribution. But
> apart from that it is usable. Browse the email list for abbot since
> there is a very good recent email explaining the whole mess.
> 
> If this is your first time approaching Eclipse GUI development then I
> strongly suggest you build it as a standalone SWT/JFace application.
> This will familiarize you with the basic widget architecture which is
> very different from Swing (read true MVC). Once you have your spkie
> going then it is a matter of refactoring the app into a plugin but you
> gain the opportunity that maybe this is all you need and also you can
> concentrate on just the learning factor of the plugin development
> cycle per.
> 
> > 
> > Anyone out there have any experience or advice on how to approach such a
> > project?
> 
> Good Luck.
> 
> > 
> > Al
> > 
> > =====
> > Albert Davidson Chou
> > 
> >     Get answers to Mac questions at http://www.Mac-Mgrs.org/ .


To unsubscribe, email:
TestFirstUserInterfaces-unsubscribe-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@public.gmane.org
 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TestFirstUserInterfaces/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    TestFirstUserInterfaces-unsubscribe-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@public.gmane.org

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/