Web App Testing on OS X With OttoMate

Get OttoMate 0.9

OttoMate is a free collection of 5 Automator Actions that allows you graphically create black box tests for your web application using Automator. Drag and drop OttoMate command and assertion Actions into an Automator Workflow, click Run, and watch as Automator puts your web app through the paces in Safari, and handles assertion failures with a Unix script you specify.

Version 0.9 is a re-write of OttoMate that includes some new features.

BTW, if Automator is your thing… also check out my other collection of Automator Actions for XML processing — Cocoatron.

Check out my screencast on how to use OttoMate to test your webapp:

OttoMate was the first OS X project I ever created, in August 2005. It’s also the first project I ever lost the source code to… DOH! S’okay… the first beta version of OttoMate I wrote in ‘05 was written using only AppleScript… and… being my first OS X project, it wasn’t very well-done. I was still very much learning the ropes.

So losing the source code to OttoMate was the kick in the pants I needed to re-write the project using mostly Objective-C (with some AppleScript and JavaScript mixed in), and to add some features that have been repeatedly requested.

I’m calling the new version version 0.9. This version should implement all of the behavior of the previous beta version and also adds two cool new features:

• A new Action called Configure OttoMate Workflow that allows you to specify Unix scripts to be executed when any OttoMate Action encounters fatal errors or assertion failures.
• The ability to set the value of any text field in any OttoMate Action to the Action’s input value by using the special variable ${input}.