Tag Archives: release

Neodymium 5.1 – Get more done faster

TL;DR: Neodymium 5.1 has been released with a host of impressive new features. These include full-page screenshots in reports, enhanced control over JSON assertions, accessibility testing via Google Lighthouse, and simplified session handling and URL validation.

The newest enhancements primarily focus on these key areas to boost testing efficiency and user experience.

Enhanced Reporting: We’ve significantly improved the quality and usability of test reports. You now get more informative and insightful results with features like full-page screenshots, enhanced JSON assertions for easier data comparison, and a streamlined report structure for improved readability.

Accessibility Testing: Recognizing the growing importance of web accessibility, we’ve integrated Google Lighthouse to automate accessibility checks. This allows you to easily identify and address accessibility issues within your web applications, ensuring compliance with WCAG standards.

Streamlined Workflows: We’ve introduced several features to streamline your testing processes. These include improved session handling for cleaner test environments, enhanced configuration options for greater flexibility, and robust URL validation to prevent unintended access to sensitive systems and ensure test stability.

These improvements are all about making your testing smoother and more dependable. You’ll get better results and learn more from them, so you can build even better software! So, let’s get into the details, shall we?

Enhanced Reporting

Neodymium 5.1 brings significant improvements to its reporting capabilities, providing you with more insightful and informative test results.

Improved Screenshots

You can now capture full-page screenshots with highlighted viewports for better visibility of the test context. Additionally, the last element, the test has interacted with, will be highlighted. This makes it easier to pinpoint the exact location of an interaction and understand the state of the application at that time.

Shows a screenshot of a report with an embedded screenshot showing the marking of the viewpport
Screenshot within Viewport Marking

Test Data Overview

Gain a deeper understanding of your test data and streamline the debugging process by accessing test data in JSON format for each test case. This detailed data analysis capability allows you to quickly identify and resolve potential issues.

Screenshot showing how test data is shown in an Allure report
Test Data within the Allure Report

JSON Assertions

The JSON file comparison feature has been enhanced. It now provides improved accuracy in identifying differences between expected and actual results.

A screenshot with test results on the left and a JSON comparison example on the right
JSON Comparison Within the Allure Report

Environment Information

We’ve added the browser used for testing to the report’s environment section to give you more context about the test results. Also, you can now add custom values to tell the difference between environments or profiles in your test runs, making it easier to figure out if any setup or deployment problems are causing issues.

Step Information and URLs

The clickable URLs included in each step of the report simplify and streamline the process to reproduce test failures and navigate to specific application pages at various points during test execution.

Reduced Report Clutter

The report now features fewer INFO sections, providing a cleaner and more concise overview with less visual noise, allowing for easier identification of critical information.

Accessibility Testing

Neodymium 5.1 now includes Google Lighthouse to help you identify and fix accessibility issues in your web applications. This integration supports your compliance with WCAG standards, and shows that we understand how important web accessibility is.

Shows a screenshot of a report with an embedded Google Lighthouse report
Lighthouse Report Embedded in Neodymium’s Allure Report

Additionally, you can assert against Lighthouse report data to track changes in state or outcome.

Furthermore, this enables WebVitals measurement and verification capabilities.

Workflow Enhancements

Several features help to streamline the testing process and improve overall test automation efficiency.

Popup Blocker

The improved popup blocker boosts test stability by minimizing disruptions from unexpected popups, which can lead to inconsistent test results.

Session Handling

Neodymium now utilizes a dedicated annotation to run @BeforeEach and @AfterEach methods in individual, fresh browser sessions. This guarantees a consistent environment for setup and tear down, and minimizes any influence from prior test steps.

Properties

Environment variables can now be used to override Neodymium properties, providing greater flexibility and simpler integration with CI/CD pipelines. This allows for more dynamic test adjustments based on the specific environment or build.

URL Validation

Restrict test access to certain sites only by defining include and exclude lists. This prevents accidental access to live sites or sensitive data, mitigating the risk of unintended modifications. Any attempt to access a URL not included in the defined list will result in an immediate test failure, providing early feedback and preventing further interactions.

Driver Command-Line Arguments

The configuration now allows for direct pass-through of driver command-line arguments, which streamlines driver setup, facilitates customization, and enables fine-tuning of driver behavior and test execution to meet your specific requirements.

Dependencies

We also updated numerous dependencies to keep them up-to-date and secure. Examples are Selenide, Allure, Log4J, and JUnit.

Summary

Neodymium 5.1 is now available! We value your feedback on new features and any defects encountered. Your input helps ensure Neodymium remains a powerful tool for your needs. You might even find a newer version of Neodymium when you read this article, depending on when you read it.

A new magnetic force: Neodymium 5.0.0

TL;DR: We proudly announce the release of Neodymium 5.0.0. Neo is a Java-based test library for web automation that utilizes existing libraries (Selenide, WebDriver, Allure, JUnit, Maven) and concepts (localization, test multiplication, page objects) and adds missing components such as test data handling, starter templates, multi-device handling, and other small but useful everyday helpers.

Our R&D team has been busy brewing! So today we finally get back on the major release train and present you the new Neodymium 5.0.0. It comes with a lot of new little convenience features, giving you more control and possibilities on your test automation. A better browser control, improved configuration possibilities and a bunch of new annotations like @DataItem, @WorkInProgress, @RandomBrowser, will help you set up and configure your test automation to your specific needs. Even if a picture says more than 1000 words sometimes it’s a pain to see on a single screenshot, why the automation journey broke, to help you in such cases, we introduced video recording, to exactly see what happened during the whole user journey.

See below for what you can find inside the big box of updated code:

Continue reading A new magnetic force: Neodymium 5.0.0

XLT 4.12.2 Release

Xceptance released version 4.12.2 of its load testing and test automation product Xceptance LoadTest. This is an improvement release. We recommend upgrading to this newest version.

Test Framework

  • Improvement: The result browser features a new tab that displays JSON responses in a tree-like view. The data can also be searched and filtered.
  • Improvement: The existing automatic request retry mechanism has been enhanced to retry failed requests in additional error situations such as connection resets. This should now behave similar to real browsers.
  • Improvement: When failed requests are retried, an event with diagnostic information is logged for each retry.
  • Improvement: The bundled Jetty library has been updated to the latest available version 9.4.14.

Load Testing

  • Improvement:  Our public AWS machine images now come with OpenJDK 11.

Make sure to read the full online release notes.

As always, this upgrade is free and don’t forget, XLT itself is free as well. You don’t have an excuse to skip performance testing or rely on lame simple test cases anymore.

XLT 4.12.1 Release

Xceptance has released version 4.12.1 of its load testing and test automation product Xceptance LoadTest.

Test Framework

  • Fix: Our timer recorder extensions for Chrome and Firefox did sometimes report invalid request entries that could not be processed by the report generator. This could happen for requests that did not complete.
  • Fix: If a test case deliberately caught an exception / assertion error and afterwards ran to completion successfully, it might nevertheless be marked as failed in the load test report.
  • Improvement: Selenium has been updated to the latest version 3.141.59 and HtmlUnitDriver to version 2.33.3.

Load Testing

  • Improvement: The new AWS data center in Stockholm, Sweden (eu-north-1) is fully supported by ec2_admin now.

Make sure to read the full online release notes.

As always, this upgrade is free and don’t forget, XLT itself is free as well. You don’t have an excuse to skip performance testing or rely on lame simple test cases anymore.

XLT 4.11 was released

Xceptance released version 4.11 of its load testing and test automation product Xceptance LoadTest. This is a feature release. We recommend upgrading to this newest version.

Here is a selection of the most important changes:

  • HtmlUnit and Selenium have been updated
  • You can run a test case with only a single data set at development time
  • XLT picks a data set automatically when a test with multiple data sets is part of a load test
  • There is a new command-line tool to automatically evaluate a test report based on your defined success criteria
  • The XLT Jenkins plugin returns a result object now with all the details when used in a pipeline
  • The XLT Jenkins plugin can now create a comparison report

See our release notes for more details. As always, this upgrade is free and don’t forget, XLT itself is free as well. You don’t have an excuse to skip performance testing or rely on lame simple test cases anymore.

XLT 4.9 has been released

Xceptance released version 4.9 of its load testing and test automation product Xceptance LoadTest. This is primarily a 3rd party update release, but also delivers some improvements.

Here is a selection of the most important changes:

  • Script Developer supports Firefox 53
  • Selenium updated to version 3.4.0
  • Better reporting of JavaScript errors in script test cases
  • Master controller displays the configured load profile
  • Load test reports can be created for a subset of agents
  • Load test reports shows the number of entries in data tables and shows summary values when filtering the table
  • Demo app server ports can be reconfigured easily

Script Developer

Script Developer has been made compatible with the latest available Firefox version, while outdated versions are not supported any longer. Script Developer runs on Firefox 45/ESR up to 53 now.

Update Instructions: Firefox will not auto-update older versions of Script Developer to 4.9.0. You will need to do this manually. Please remove the currently installed version first and afterwards install the new version by simply dragging and dropping the file xlt-scriptdeveloper-4.9.0.xpi onto Firefox. Auto-updating within the 4.9.x product line will then work as usual again.

Alternatively you can visit the Mozilla Add-On marketplace and install Script Developer from there (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/xceptance-script-developer/). Please make sure you uninstall your locally installed version first.

Framework

XLT now ships with Selenium 3.4.0. Make sure you update your locally installed driver binaries to the latest available version. This is especially true for geckodriver. In case you experience issues with geckodriver / Firefox, you might be better off running FirefoxDriver in legacy mode. The legacy mode is more mature.

All other core libraries have been updated as well. This also includes HtmlUnit for an improved browser emulation.

The XLT framework also comes with some functional improvements. In case a JavaScript expression in your script test case could not be evaluated successfully for any reason, the root cause will now be listed as part of the exception message. Libraries that make use of Java’s built-in logging framework do no longer log to the console, but to XLT’s log file.

Load and Performance Testing

The Mastercontroller now prints the configured load profile to the console when starting a load test and also when displaying the current status. This helps to spot test configuration mistakes earlier. Intermediate results downloaded, while a load test is still running, will now be flagged to distinguish them from final results.

The load test report shows the number of entries in a data table, and when filtering a data table, the footer row is updated accordingly. Load test reports may also be created for only a subset of the agents. You might remember that version 4.8 already delivered the ability to render reports for specific test cases only.

Last but not least, ec2_admin prints more details about running AWS machine instances and lets you review your choice before actually terminating running instances.

Demo App Server / Posters Store

The app server that hosts our demo applications uses ports 8080 and 8443 by default. Since these ports are often already used by other applications, you can now reconfigure them easily.

Our demo application Posters Store now runs with HTTPS only. Any HTTP request will be redirected to use HTTPS.

Sounds interesting? More details can be found in the release notes of XLT 4.9.

Release of XLT 4.8

XLT 4.8 is primarily a technology update release, but also comes with some new features.

First and foremost, XLT now ships with Selenium 3, the new version of the WebDriver library. All other core libraries have been updated as well. This also includes HtmlUnit for an improved browser emulation. Beginning with this release, XLT requires Java 8 to run.

The XLT framework also comes with some functional improvements. XLT now supports OperaDriver out of the box and can run FirefoxDriver in either the new Marionette mode using geckodriver or in the “old” legacy mode. When you drive Firefox via XltFirefoxDriver, you will get a much more detailed result browser now, with almost the same request and response details that you already know from XltDriver. Any values that you programmatically add to the newly introduced value log of a session are shown in the result browser as well. Furthermore, most of the XLT framework properties can now be configured not only globally, but also specifically for a certain test scenario.

For load testers, there is something in the box as well. If you use the AWS EC2 cloud a lot, you will be glad to hear that the new AWS data center in Ohio is now fully supported. The load test report has been tuned to become usable much faster, even with lengthy pages such as the Requests page.

Last but not least, the Poster Store demo application and the XLT Jenkins Plug-In have both been updated. If you ever wanted to load-test your WebDAV server, there is now a new demo test suite for that.

Sounds interesting? More details can be found in the release notes of XLT 4.8.

Release of XLT 4.7

Summary

Xceptance released version 4.7 of its load testing and test automation product Xceptance LoadTest. It features a wide range of improvements and new functionalities.

Here is a selection of the most important changes.

  • Script Developer fully supports test data sets now
  • Script Developer learned “post steps” for easy cleanup or tear down of test cases
  • Script Developer and the framework support the new echo command for enhanced debugging
  • Load testing supports a variable load factor function to easily and globally vary load quickly
  • Load test reports display DNS resolution time
  • Load test reports display error charts per error type and response code
  • Data tables and charts for custom values display more details
  • Data tables have sticky headers for easier data evaluation
  • Load test reports can be created for specific test scenarios by filtering to include or exclude specific scenarios during report creation
  • XLT can log method and POST data to its timer files
  • All core libraries have been updated for improved browser support and improved performance
  • The new Amazon data center in Mumbai, India (ap-south-1) has been added

See below for more details of the highlights. Make sure to read the full online release notes.

As always, this upgrade is free for everyone.

Continue reading Release of XLT 4.7

Xceptance released XLT 4.5

Xceptance released version 4.5 of its load testing and test automation product Xceptance LoadTest (XLT). This release enables you to write better test documentation, delivers more scripting capabilities, and shows really cool charts.

XLT 4.5.1 ScriptdocScript Developer has been enhanced to let you maintain the documentation of your script library directly in Script Developer. This way you can create and maintain your test documentation together with the code and don’t need to be able to read the code to understand the test cases.

Load testing is even more fun now. Continue reading Xceptance released XLT 4.5

XLT 4.3.2 is available

Xceptance has released version 4.3.2 of its load testing and test automation product Xceptance LoadTest. This is an improvement and bug fix release. More information about this release can be found in the release notes.

Script Developer

  • Improvement: Support for Firefox 27.
  • Improvement: Usability improvement when sorting test data entries or module parameters.
  • Improvement: Native platform line endings are used when exporting Java code now.
  • Improvement: Script migration errors are now written to the log panel instead of to messages boxes.
  • Fix: No error message anymore when two scripts have the same name but are located in different packages.

Result Browser

  • Fix: Query parameters were incorrectly parsed because the fragment (#…) was included.

Framework

  • Fix: WebDriver features were not exposed when WebDrivers were reused.

EC2-AMIs with Java 7

  • eu-west-1 : ami-3650a641
  • us-east-1 : ami-d33a01ba
  • us-west-1 : ami-5ef4c91b
  • us-west-2 : ami-ce97f4fe
  • ap-southeast-2 : ami-fd0c92c7