Progress on the Linux Desktop Testing Project [LWN.net]

The Linux Desktop Testing Project (LDTP) is a desktop application testing framework that was originally announced in January, 2005.

GNU/Linux Desktop Testing Project (GNU/LDTP) is aimed at producing [a] high quality test automation framework and cutting-edge tools that can be used to test [the] GNU/Linux Desktop and improve it. It uses the Accessibility libraries to poke through the application's user interface. The framework also has tools to record test-cases based on user-selection on the application. GNU/LDTP core framework uses Appmap and the recorded test-cases to test an application and gives the status of each test-case as output.

The LDTP About and FAQ documents explain the software's operation. Here are some highlights of LDTP:

Written in the C and Python languages.
Licensed under the LGPL.
Can be used to improve desktop application stability by making application testing easy.
Concepts are derived from the Software Testing Automation Framework (STAF).
Is desktop agnostic, works with the GNOME (2.10 and above) and KDE (4.0) desktops.
Can be used on Mozilla, OpenOffice.org and Java applications.
Works on Linux and Solaris, a FreeBSD port is underway.
Is supported on the OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora Core distributions.
Uses the Assistive Technology libraries for connection to the user interface.
LDTP connects to the test application through the remap function.
Includes application CPU and memory performance monitoring.
Test scripts are easy to write.
Test output is available in an XML log format.
Includes a Test Editor for creating tests.

The online user manual explains how to set LDTP up for application testing and explains the API.

Version 0.8.0 of LDTP was recently announced: "This release features number of important breakthroughs in LDTP as well as in the field of Test Automation."

New capabilities of LDTP 0.8.0 include:

Performance has been greatly improved.
The LDTP execution engine has had stability improvements.
A number of memory leaks have been removed.
A large number of bugs have been fixed.
Some new code has been contributed by the Palm Source testing team.
An LDTP repository has been added to the OpenSUSE build system.
LDTP is now available on the Mandriva distribution.
A new LDTP Flash demo is available.

The LDTP source code is available for download here.

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