How do you write test suites for GUI components?

[Marcus von Appen]

j_mckitrick at bigfoot.com (j_mckitrick) writes:

> What exactly do you test for?

What GUI is exactly discussed here? A specific toolkit? Writing an own
GUI render engine and components?

I am currently writing an own GUI toolkit based on pygame (located at
http://ocemp.sf.net) and my major approach for testing the components will
be the following:

* Testing object instantiation and addition to the render engine
* Testing all public and private methods using various parameters
* Testing the behaviour of the object after modifying (public) attributes
* Testing the event management of the object
* Testing the container behaviour (packed widgets in tables, Frames, etc.)
* Testing collision detection of objects (if wanted)
* Testing the removal of the widget (correct unregistering any events,
  deletion of all references, etc.)
* Testing exception handling, if any
* Testing threading behaviour, if any
* Testing the object behaviour, when the renderer attributes (, etc.) change

Though I did not implement any test stuff for my current engine and
componenets I would (and will) always go that way.
I also would place the test framework either in the corresponding module
or into an own module (dependant on the implementation of the toolkit).

Regards
Marcus

-- 
We don't understand the software, and sometimes we don't understand the 
hardware, but we can *see* the blinking lights!