M-eux Test is the only tool that seamlessly extends Unified Functional Testing (UFT) and QuickTest Professional (QTP) from Hewlett Packard to test mobile applications. The underlying technology of UFT/QTP is re-used for test automation of mobile applications. By loading the M-eux Test add-in, the QC engineer can use all the functionalities of UFT/QTP to test mobile applications, including recording, object repository, active screen, exception handling, and it is also integrated with HP’s Business Process Testing (BPT) and Quality Center (QC) Software.

Mobile application testing

With the M-eux Test add-in loaded, QuickTest Professional can recognize the user interface elements on the actual device or in the emulator/simulator.

All user interface objects are directly recognized by their attributes. The add-in applies the same technology for the mobile device that QuickTest Professional applies in the PC world : the access to the user interface object through the API of the operating system. This ensures:

• Full support of all mobile user interface objects in the object repository.
• Recording functionality
• Re-use of the QuickTest Professional expertise like: descriptive programming techniques, exception handling, etc …
• Full support for QC and BPT integration of QuickTest Professional
• Easy scripting of reliable scripts
• Easy re-use of the script for regression testing, validation testing on new versions of the mobile operating system, validation testing on new models of actual devices.

The following figure shows a part of the set of attributes recognized by the tool of the iPhone list user interface object.

Using these attributes, the tool can manipulate and verify all characteristics of the mobile user interface object. No bitmap scraping or pattern matching or OCR techniques are applied ensuring high reliability and re-use of the test scripts.

The tool has proven its value in testing mobile applications handling dynamic data or mobile applications that are localized.

The tool contains also utility functions in order to complete the support for testing mobile applications. For example: incoming phone calls can be intercepted. SMS, e-mail messages can be sent from the background. Also diagnostic functions are available showing for example the memory allocation, the number of processes running on the device and many other functions related to the hardware and software configuration of the device.