Re: automated screenshots (was Re: more doc work, Re: completed gataxx doc)

["ensonic" <ensonic hora-obscura de>]

hi,

just seen this discussion here. In my pet-project 'buzztard' [1] I
experiment with something similar. We have a check based unit-test suite
[2]. I have written some GUI helper for UI tests. During configure we check
if Xvfb (virtual x server) is available. If it is the test-helper create a
virtual display and clone the theme settings. During the test runs,
screenshos are taken (and scaled by 75%). The cool thing is, that it shoots
arbitrary widgets (and thus also widget groups). I use these shoots to
review if the GUI looks sane (I plan to generate a html index page along
with that and to generate diff pictures to compare to previous runs).
In my user-guide makefile.am I have an update-figures target which copies
the screenshots and adds a drop-shadow (via imagemagick).

In theory shots can be taking in several languages by changing LC_ALL and
running the the tests multiple times. Its also planned to do the shadow
stuff as part of the screenshooting (in C). One other idea is to overlay
the figures with colored rectangle and labels (gtk_widget_get_name) to ease
reffering to sections in the screenshot. For these things I need to figure
out whats the easies way to draw stuff that is not visible :)

I am going to commit more of that to our project CVS this weekend.

Stefan

[1] http://www.buzztard.org
[2] http://check.sf.net

On 9:06:56 pm 03/08/2006 Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org> wrote:
> On Thu, 2006-08-03 at 19:59 +0100, Don Scorgie wrote:
> >  Hi,
> >
> >  On Thu, 2006-08-03 at 19:51 +0100, Joachim Noreiko wrote:
> >  <snip>
> > >
> > >  How much can DogTail automate?
> > >
> > >  Can everything about how a screenshot should be made
> > >  be codified into a script? -- eg window size, document
> > >  contents, menus, dialog boxes, pop-up elements etc?
> > >
> > >  If so, then I can imagine the following scenario:
> > >
> > >  The DocBook file contains a tag for the screenshot.
> > >  This tag contains somewhere within it meta-information
> > >  destined for DogTail.
> > >  The documentation writer copies this to the terminal,
> > >  dogtail opens a few windows, does its stuff, and
> > >  shazamm!!! the screenshot has been updated based on
> > >  the software on the writer's system. (Because the
> > >  meta-information also says where to save the file, of
> > >  course!)
> >
> >  Or, better yet...
> >  Create a script (in gnome-doc-utils, of course.  Seems to be my
> >  favourite place today ;) ), something like "update-screenshots".
> >  Each screenshot would have an associated dogtail script.  The
> >  "update-screenshots" would run each dogtail script in turn,
> >  producing the desired output.  Almost the same amount of work, but
> >  saves the writers copy-pasting a series of strange commands from a
> >  file to a terminal (where errors can creep in).
>
> You silly people.  Think BIG.
>
> If we can get perfectly reliable automated screenshots,
> then there's no reason for the documentation writers to
> be taking and saving them.  We could just automatically
> create the shots inside Yelp when the user views a page.
> And then the screenshot conforms exactly to that user's
> theme.
>
> Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
>
> --
> Shaun
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> gnome-doc-list mailing list
> gnome-doc-list gnome org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-doc-list