CSS testing summary

[Colin Clark]

Hi everyone,

A few of us met today in Connect after standup to talk through Jacob's  
excellent work creating tests for the Fluid Skinning System. It was  
clear from the conversation that CSS testing in general is an under- 
serviced area, but is not without significant challenges.

Jacob's current crop of FSS test pages can be found on the daily build  
server here:

http://build.fluidproject.org/manual-tests.html

One of the things that emerged from the conversation is the need for  
test plans that will guide the tester through the process of  
evaluating these test pages. Since our goal isn't pixel-perfect CSS  
across all browsers, there's an element of fuzziness and experience  
inherent in the testing process. The test plans will need to highlight  
the fairly subtle distinctions on the page that will denote a failing  
test.

Justin and Jacob are going to move forward on creating test plans for  
several of the test pages, and we'll pilot these new tests during the  
Infusion 0.8 release cycle. Inevitably we'll find that some things  
work better than others, and will refine the process based on this  
experience.

Here's a copy of Justin's first FSS QA test plan:

http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/FSS+QA+Test+Plan+-+Layout+Containers

If you have any feedback or can lend us a hand in perfecting this  
testing approach, don't hesitate to dive in.

Colin

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Colin Clark
Technical Lead, Fluid Project
Adaptive Technology Resource Centre, University of Toronto
http://fluidproject.org