Abandoning Proprietary Test Tools for Graphical User Interface Verification

Graphical user interfaces have become an expected, and often desired, interface providing access to the functionality of a given piece of software. It is therefore necessary to place the interface through a series of verification and validation processes. The increased application of and reliance upon graphical user interfaces has corresponded with a perceived increase in interface complexity, and therefore, a paralleled increase in the complexity of the verification and validation process. To aid this process a commercial tool, with associated proprietary language, was selected. After some relatively successful regression runs we decided to re-evaluate this approach, and on examination, felt that a change had become necessary to continue parallel development of the test code and the interface itself. We detail the successful transition from a proprietary tool to a fully open source solution, taking advantage of the benefits offered by a general purpose programming language.