EggPlant is a suite of test automation tools that helps teams achieve greater productivity with fully automated performance/functional testing. Because of its approach to test automation (using image-matching techniques) it allows for system-wide automation of a system-under-test as opposed to an application-specific solution.
Introduction to Eggplant
Eggplant is a suite of test-automation tools that can be used to test applications across various desktop and mobile platforms.
The various components of the Eggplant suite are
- Eggplant Functional
- Eggplant AI
- Eggplant Network
- Eggplant Performance
- Eggplant Automation Cloud
- Eggplant Manager
- Eggplant Integrations
- Digital Automation Intelligence
- Ecosystem
Eggplant is a paid product with a free trial.
How it works
Most test-automation tools (especially those that involve UI automation) can be classified into two buckets - those that use some form of image-recognition and those that have access to the objects within the application being tested.
With the latter approach, typically an "instrumented" form of the application with tool-specific "hooks" is deployed to the system-under-test for testing. This instrumented application enables testing tools to access the object-level information of the application being tested.
Eggplant uses the former approach. It uses image-matching technology as opposed to looking to the object-level of the application being tested. What this means is that Eggplant "sees" the screen of the system being tested, and can recognize, for example, when a particular window or icon or text appears onscreen.
Because Eggplant only looks at the "screen" of the system under test, the technology used in the application to be tested does not matter; nor does the system that the application runs on. It also means that eggPlant does not require the application to be "instrumented".
Eggplant is a two-computer system, consisting of a controller machine, where scripts are authored and executed, and a system-under-test which runs a VNC server. Eggplant connects to this VNC server via its built-in viewer via TCP/IP. The system-under-test can be any system that has a VNC server for it. This includes mobile devices, which may be tethered to either the primary or secondary computer using USB or wireless communications and a Mobile Gateway.
Scripting is accomplished using a proprietary scripting language called SenseTalk, an English-like language that is easy to use. SenseTalk is used in conjunction with a "guided record" mode, meaning the scripter teaches Eggplant to navigate a system and verify a set of test steps.
