Shadow™ - Technology Overview
Shadow™ provides a unique solution to test automation. Shadow™, unlike most other test tools, looks at the screen of another computer and controls the keyboard and mouse, in a similar way to a person.
By testing the actual user interface that a human sees and with which they interact, Shadow™ is recreating the user experience. The goal of automated testing is to test the user experience provided by the software, and not to test the “under the hood” functionality that a user never sees.
Shadow™ uses leading edge, image-based, component discovery technology to achieve this. All of the image processing is done away from the machine running the software being tested, so with its small footprint, and low impact on the CPU, overall performance of the software under test is minimally affected.
Shadow™ - Connects many computers
Unlike just one person, however, Shadow™ can control several machines at the same time. In a typical setup a user might have as few as 1 or as many as 5 or more machines configured to be viewed from one single location. Each keyboard and mouse for a machine can be controlled at the same time, each following the actions taken on a particular machine. Alternatively the user can interact with each individual machine separately.
Shadow™ can test any software running on MS Windows
The MS Windows software can be written in any language or development environment, it can even be run in any browser; none of this matters to Shadow™. Shadow™ does not interact with any API exposed by the software under test, so it is not reliant on application specific technologies. The Shadow Target™ software runs alongside the software under test, and has a minimal impact on performance.
What you see is what you get with Shadow™
Other tools use "under the hood" information to get "objects" in the software being tested. Shadow™ uses leading edge image-based component discovery technology to view the user interface of the software to get all its information, just like a person. Shadow™ is structured to be easy to use and intuitive, so that you can be productive with the application in a short time.
Shadow™ Data Flow
The diagram below illustrates the data flow through the Shadow™ system. The three major components are the Shadow Target™ which runs on the system under test (SUT), the Shadow ™ Dispatcher which processes screen information from the SUT (and sends them control information), and the Shadow ™ Viewer which allows the QA engineer to view and control each SUT.
Shadow™ As a Content Generator
Shadow ™ allows instant creation of content for distribution to other areas of your business, including software support, desktop publishing, language review, or marketing.
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