Windmill: writing tests in Python

Windmill is a web testing framework that provides complete testing automation and strong debugging capabilities, tests can be written Python, JavaScript, and Ruby.

Windmill test automation in PythonWindmill is a web testing framework that provides complete testing automation and strong debugging capabilities. It becomes more and more popular among the developers and QA testers because it aims at making test writing easier, portable and sustainable. With this in mind Windmill provides a robust architecture that allows flexibility and back-and-forth communication.

Windmill is a cross-domain, cross-platform and cross-browser testing software. It runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. It supports all major browsers: IE, Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera. In all this browsers you can use sterling IDE. There is no need to additionally use Visual Studio or Eclipse, since tests for any of the mentioned browsers can be written directly in the Windmill IDE.

Windmill itself was developed using Python and JavaScript. Tests can be written in Python, JavaScript, Ruby, and there is a complete set of JSUnit functions. Moreover, Windmill provides a cross-browser test recorder that allows writing tests without learning a programming language. Simply record, edit, playback and interact with your tests from one interface.

Windmill advantages

Windmill includes wxWindmill Service UI that loads/runs test files and test directories. It can clear the test queue, launch Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer, as well as kill the open Windmill test browser instances. Main Windmill features are:

  • built-in Python shell that interacts with WIndmill server
  • built-in debugging tools: Firebug и Firebug Lite
  • rich set of commands for interaction with the application
  • DOM Explorer, XPath Explorer and Assertion Explorer integrated
  • test saving, recording and playback
  • SSL connection support
  • reports generation on test running and performance
  • malleable proxy API
  • PDB debugging support

Windmill can compete with the currently existing automation tools. For example, Selenium doesn’t provide proxy manipulation or integrated debugging tools like Windmill. Selenium has wider browser and language support (C#, Java, JavaScript, Objective-C, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, etc.), but Windmill has test recorder for all platforms, while Selenium provides plugin only for Firefox. Also Windmill is fully cross-domain.

Windmill continues to grow and develop. If you are looking for a well-defined and efficient web testing tool designed to automate and debug your web application, then visit getwindmill.com and try it out.

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