As the lead to the ALM MVPs I am continually surprised by the breadth of skills my MVPs have. For instance this post was created by Terje Sandstrom. In our ranks we tend to think of Terje as an architect and of the worlds foremost experts on our UML designers and Architect Explorer. So this morning it was with a bit of surprise when i see not only does he have a series on Code Analysis with C++ and C# projects i see in my inbox a post on new feature in Visual Studio Update 1 –the ability Edit Test Case properties directly from the test runner of Microsoft Test Manager. (Make sure and also check out Anna Russo’s post: Pausing and resuming test execution from the test runner in Microsoft Test Manager)
Thanks for the blog post Terje!
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Edit Test Cases during Test running in Visual Studio 2012 Update 1 by Terje Sandstrom
Visual Studio 2012 Update 1 adds the ability to edit a test case while you’re using the Test Runner. This has been a request from many, and have got quite a number of votes on the User Voice site.
This comes in very handy when you’re developing the test cases. You often start out with a rough test case, where the details are not fixed. Then you run the Test Runner to see how everything works out, and when going through the steps you can change the test case there and then.
In the screenshot below we have started up a rough test case in the Test Runner:
The first two steps have been passed, and are ok, but the 3rd step needs to be corrected and expanded.
Notice the new Edit button (red arrow). Press that and the test run is paused,
and the Test Case Editor is opened.
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You can change any aspect of the test case. We have changed the text for the 3rd step, and added a 4th step, changed the Iteration, changed the State of the test case, and on another Tab, the Summary tab, we have added some text there, and also a comment in the history field, showing that anything can be changed.
The editing of the test case is not bound to the Test Runner, it has just been opened by the Test Runner. This means you can change anything, you can add and delete, and save the changes. Subsequent edits will continue where you left off.
After you have saved and closed the Test Case editor, the test runner will automatically go back to a running state, and you can continue testing.
The saved changes will not have any effect on the currently running test. This is important to note. You must terminate the current run, and start a new test run for the changes to have effect. There are some good reasons for this behavior – an important one is that since you can add results to a running test, an edit could have changed steps you already had attached bugs or results to, and the test runner would then have been in an indeterminate state.
The ability to edit test cases while running means it will be more easy to maintain the test cases directly during testing, and thus continuously improving the quality of the test cases.
By
Terje Sandstrom
------ Chief Software Geek at Inmeta Consulting in Scandinavia ----- and a Visual Studio ALM MVP