ATS4 AppModel is an application flow design tool supporting application specification work, model based testing and test script generation. It provides simple interface to manage complex models. ATS4 AppModel is part of Nokia ATS tool family.

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Installation

• ATS 4 AppModel requires the Java Runtime Environment 6 to run (aka. "JRE 1.6.0").
• Installing ATS4 AppModel is easy: get the latest distribution and unpack it to desired folder so that the folder structure is restored. See also the included readme.txt file for more information. Start ATS4 AppModel by clicking ATS4 AppModel.bat (or ATS4 AppModel.sh on Linux).

Basic configurations

ATS4 AppModel can be configured run time via Tools/Settings menu.

User can modify:

• The active language, which changes the active language that this model represent. This affects the images inside system events and the language of generated document.
• The autogeneration of description to test scripts and the usage of auto phrase suggestion
• The visual appearance of graph, the spacing between nodes, the naming principles of nodes etc...
• The speed of simulation and the usage of animations in simulation
• Project auto-save settings

UI Design Tools

ATS4 AppModel can be configured to use almost any UI desing tool. In Tools/Settings menu one can find UI Tool tab that holds settings for used UI tool.

• Executable field holds the path to the executable file of desired UI tool e.g. c:\windows\system32\mspaint.exe if user wants to use MSPaint
• Image Directory is folder that is the place where user must save files made by UI tool to make them available in ATS4 AppModel (.png format is preferred)

Key Features In Action

Automatic Test script generation

Model designer can add descriptions to user and system events. ATS4 AppModel has intelligent keyword generator that can automatically suggest phrases and words that can be later turn automatically to test scripts. For example, the description User selects menu item "Send SMS" is automatically broken into test script kw_SelectMenu "Send SMS".

NOTICE: You must have setting "Generate keywords from event descriptions" selected for keyword auto generation to work

Use Case Creation

Model designer can use his model to define main use case paths. Use case can be divided into individual sub paths and both use case and use case paths can have descriptions. These descriptions and the created use cases serve as the base for automatically generated document.

Use case can be created in two ways:

• Selecting the start and end points of the use case.
• Selecting all system events belonging to the use case.

How External UI tool works in ATS4 AppModel

1. Double click the system response that you want sketch. This launches the UI tool that you have specified in settings.
2. Sketch the screen with the tool.
3. Save the sketch in the folder specified in settings as GIF, JPG and PNG. (PNG format is preffered)
4. AppModel automatically detects the save and imports the sketch in to the system response.

Automatic Document Generation

ATS4 AppModel supports automatic document (Test Specification) generation. The document can be generated in any language supported in the localisation file (e.g. Chinese, Japan, Arabic etc...). The same model can be used to automatically generate document in any supported language. The document holds the basic structure of application and the document holds all use cases created by model designer.

The benefits of this approach is that the document generation is always in sync with the model and the document generation doesn't require any extra effort.

ATS4 AppModel Dictionary

• System Model: The top-level model of the system, that can be understood as the "operating system level" of the model. For example, the basic menu and desktop features of a device should be modeled in the System model.
• Application Model: A model of a single application, for example the Phonebook, Messaging or Media Gallery. Consists of the System and User Events of the application, and may reference other Application Models by using In and Out Gates.
• Sub-Model: An object that may be used to group System Events and User Events in logical wholes. The purpose of the sub-models is to make models easier to understand and hide parts of a model that are not relevant in the current level. For example, each menu in an application could be built inside a sub-model so that the menu's entry point level is not filled with all the menu items.
• System event: Also known as system response or system state. System events present the state of the tested application after a set of user events. Typically system event descriptions contain information about components visible in the UI of the tested application. In ATS4 AppModel graphs, System Events are represented as yellow boxes, that may contain a screen capture from the device.
• User event: Also know as user action. A set of actions taken by the application user. User events may involve, for example, pressing buttons or selecting menus. In ATS4 AppModel graphs, User Events are represented as arrows that connect the System Events.
• Start State: An abstract entry point of an Application Model. Each model may contain only one Start State. The purpose of the Start State is to define the actions required for launching and initializing the application.
• Entry Point: Similar to Start State but Entry Point does not launch applications or define any other actions. The purpose of an Entry Point is to define where a sub-model is entered from the upper-level model. Sub-models may contain several Entry Points, which allows entering into different System Events of a sub-model.
• Exit Point: Defines the point where a sub-model can be exited, similar to Entry Point.
• In Gate: A node that acts as an "interface" of an Application Model. Other Application Models may enter the model through In Gate to avoid modeling the overlapping System Events twice.
• Out Gate: A node that leads from an Application Model to another. For example, the Gallery application uses Messaging application to send multimedia messages. The sending related parts of the models are overlapping, and thus Gallery model may reference a System Event in Messaging through Out Gate.
• Use Case: Use Cases may be defined by Model Designer. In ATS4 AppModel, Use Case basically means an individual path throught the model, which represents a common usage scenario of the application. If the application provides multiple ways to achieve the same end result, a Use Case may contain several paths. However, it is restricted that all Use Case paths begin from the same System Event.
• Test Case: Test Cases may be defined by Test Designer. Otherwise, Test Cases are similar to Use Cases.
• Test Data: Test data variables may be used in System and User Events. A Test Data variable, for example $Firstname$, is a reference to a set of test data values, for example "John", "Jack", "Jane" and "Mary". When Test Data variable is used in the events, the model path is repeated so that each test data value is included in the test script. For instance, this enables executing a single path with different input values repeatedly.
• Test Set: A list of items to be executed in the test engine as a batch. For example, Test Set may consist of Use Cases, Test Cases and complete Application models. Each item is executed in the order of the list, and may be repeated as many times as defined in the Test Set.

Download Documentation

23-6-2009 ATS4 Core added to SourceForge

New product of ATS4 family was just released as open source project.
ATS4 Core is a test execution management tool supporting several
non-UI test frameworks and UI test automation tools.

18-7-2009 The new ATS4 Appmodel website launched