User Group meeting in Washington DC "Approaches to Automatically Testing Visual Components"

Approaches to Automatically Testing Visual Components
by Richard Winston

In Delphi, DUnit provides a framework for performing unit tests.
DUnit makes it easy to automatically test non-visual components and
classes. Testing visual components is more difficult because
appearance and user interaction are key parts of the behavior of
visual components. One method to test visual components is to
programmatically generate mouse and keyboard events and let the
component respond as it would to ordinary user interaction. Event
handlers and the internal state of the component can then be tested
using ordinary methods. The visual appearance of the component can be
checked by comparing a bitmap of the component's appearance to a
previously generated bitmap that is considered correct. If there is a
difference in the bitmaps, the bitmaps can be displayed to the tester
to confirm that the difference is significant.

The meeting starts at 7:00 PM at the usual place (Inter-American
Development Bank, 1350 New York Ave NW, Washington, DC - Room B300).
We get together for a quick dinner at 6:00 PM at the The Shoppes at
National Place (corner of 13th and F Streets) before the meeting.
please join us for a bite!

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