Test Run

And the focus of Beta 8 is exactly that: polish. A good example of this is the following: ever since Test Run was initially released first-time users were greeted with this oh-so-informative message:

“TODO - Introduction and links to create test cases.”

And that’s it. Um, yeah - thanks for that.

Beta 8 starts to address Test Run’s “out-of-box experience.” Now, when a user accesses Test Run for the first time they are presented with a nice little introduction about the tool, with links to tips and tricks to help them get started. Over time, this introduction will be fleshed out even more and will include a product tour and more. But for now, users will no longer feel like they were just dropped into the middle of nowhere without a map.

Out-of-box experiences do not, however, just apply to the front door. They apply to every first impression a user has of an application, for which there are many. And the first impression a user has is not with the application itself, but with the installation and upgrade process for that application.

In working with customers I learned how the upgrade process was brittle, and saw first hand where the process broke down for users. So care was taken to make the upgrade process not only easier, but also more reliable.

Finally and most importantly, but least glamorous, a great number of bugs have been fixed. Now normally, the little marketer in me would not call attention to this fact because it is generally not a good sign to point out to the world that your product has bugs. But you know what? Test Run did have bugs. There is no getting around that. So I am happy to say that many have been fixed.

So what’s next? I will continue to respond to support requests and fix bugs as they are found, but my primary focus is shifting to a major overhaul of the user interface which I am very excited about. But more on that later… In the meantime, sign-up for a free trial, or download the latest version of Test Run. I am dying to hear what everyone thinks.

Change Log

• Dramatically enhanced upgrade process. Added install_metadata table to track current database schema version that is installed to facilitate upgrades. Added logic to guess the version of Test Run you have installed based upon existing schema. Allows user to select/override the version they are upgrading from. Tested thoroughly upgrades from all previous versions, and the install process.
• Fixed bug where login.php was not loading database information properly, resulting in an error.
• Fixed yet another bug with the parse_tags function
• Tags are now always sorted alphabetically, to make it easier to scan, and easier to compare two set of tags
• Fixed bug where tags were not being imported into Test Run from Excel spreadsheets
• Fixed bug where tags were not being exported properly to Excel spreadsheets.
• Fixed issues with returning user to correct page when/after editing their preferences. Added a message to be displayed after they have edited their information.
• Added copy through out the application to help with the “out-of-box” experience.
• Fixed bug where bulk delete did not prompt user to confirm transaction
• Rolled back hooks into test dependency functionality. This functionality is on hold until a later date.
• Fixed bug where tag filter on test plan listing page did not retain mode (sticky)
• Fixed bug where returnto URL for deleting test plans was not set properly.
• Added parse_tags function to normalize how a list of tags are parsed into a set of tags consumed by the system (it eliminate duplicate tags, parses comma and space delimited lists, etc.
• Added ability to filter the Test Case Completion report by tag, which in turn inspired the following:
• Added a Tag Report which (for now) displays a table of all status statistics (passed, failed, not run, etc) on a tag-by-tag basis.
• Fixed bug whereby filtering testcases by more than one tag resulted in critical error