chancery 0.9.6

Chancery is a simple text editor with predefined openQA snippets.

Chancery is a very simple text editor for openQA, i.e. allows to type text, save and open files. However, its main purpose is to speed up the development of openQA test scripts so it does not specialize in text typing in the first place. Its main strength is that it comes with a library of openQA command snippets that you can quickly insert using the menu items or keyboard shortcuts.

The current version (0.9) offers almost all snippets that are most frequently used in Fedora openQA scripts. The future versions will provide more and more snippets until the whole openQA TestApi is covered. If you are new to openQA scripting, you might want to read the openQA TestApi to understand, how specific methods (snippets) work and what you can expect from them.

How to use the application

• Type in the text area.

• Insert snippets at a cursor position using Quick actions, Menu, or Keyboard shortcuts.

How to start with openQA scripting

1. Each script needs to be enclosed in the sub {} structure, or it will not work in the openQA engine. The Create file layout button in the Quick actions will insert the snippet for you.

2. Each script needs to have a subroutine called test_flags to set test flags for the script. The Set test flags button in the Quick actions will insert the snippet for you with all the test flags switched off. To switch on the flag, change its value to 1. Note, that some of the test flags contradict each other, such as no_rollback or always_rollback so pay attention to the settings. You can also delete the unused flags for better readability.

How to work with snippets

Obligatory arguments

Usually, the methods use obligatory arguments, further called arguments. These are presented as perl variables, such as $needlematch or $text. You can either define these variables previously, or replace the references with expected values.

Non-obligatory arguments

The testAPI methods use various configuration options. When these are left out, the method then works with the default settings, which is mostly fine. The snippets, however, provide all such configuration variables using the default values so they can be modified to suit the users’ needs without having to consult the documentation all the time. If you do not need to alter an option you can leave it as is, or delete it from the snippet for better readability.

Examples

Create a skeleton file

1. Click Create file layout on the Quick actions menu.

2. Navigate to the end of the file.

3. Click Set test flags on the Quick actions menu.

4. Change the values to 1 for flags you want to set.

Using the skeleton file to create a perl module

1. Create a skeleton file (see above).

2. Add an event or command using the prebuilt snippets.

3. Edit command snippet to suit your needs.

4. Repeat for other commands.

5. Save as .pm file (Chancery sets the correct suffix for you.)

Adding a command with a needle

If Libvirt is running on your system and it is running in the user space, Chancery has the ability to connect to the virtual machine and take a screenshot of the current screen and make it into an openQA needle.

1. Press Alt-X-V or select VirtMachine > Connect to a VM.

2. Choose one of the running VMs from the drop down menu.

3. Click the Connect button.

4. Select a snippet and add it to the file.

5. Delete the $needlematch place holder and leave a cursor in its place.

6. Press Alt-X-T or select VirtMachine > Create needle to get the screenshot dialog.

7. Set the primary tag. Note, that the needle file will be named with the tag’s name.

8. Click Create needle to take a screenshot of the current status quo of the virtual machine and save it as a _png_ file.

9. Press Alt-X-E or select VirtMachine > Edit needle to open the needle in an external needle editor called Needly. If you installed Chancery with pip, Needly should come with it. Otherwise, install Needly with pip install needly.

10. Edit the needle and save it. Read the Needly documentation for more info on how to use Needly.

How to report bugs

If you think you have found a bug, report it in the project’s issues.