Session tester – A tool for note-taking (for now)

I’ve been helping out testing Jonathan Kohl’s Session Tester over the last few months. While the second release was the first that appeared to meet my needs to a degree, it had a few critical problems that lead to data loss. If I’m taking notes, the most critical feature is that my notes be preserved.

I’m pleased to say that the latest release, version 0.2.1 is much more stable. I’ve had no issues with notes going missing over the last six weeks or so, and can recommend picking it up and taking a look. You can download it at http://sessiontester.openqa.org/download.html

Session Tester is based on James Bach’s Session Based Test Management method. The long-term road map also includes some other exciting ideas. Right now though, this is a product very much in early development. You won’t be able to run your test effort using SBTM as described in the original article. If that’s something you need, or would like to try, you can probably get close to it if you are prepared to spend some time transforming XML documents so that they can feed into the tools provided at satisfice.com.

What it will give you though, and the part that I find of great value right now, is a nice framework for taking notes on your testing, and managing your personal testing process. The tags that it provides, and for which it generates reports, help to remind me of the things that I should be paying attention to. Again, it’s not 100% complete yet, but it’s a good start, and you may find it helps you take better notes when you’re testing.

You may not like the way it does something. That’s OK. The project has an aim of providing open interfaces which will let you modify, transform and hack. If you don’t like its output, you can probably find a way to fix it. Or better yet, you can go straight to the source and tell us how it should be!

The project is looking for another developer to help out right now, so if you’d like to participate in a community project, get in touch with me or Jonathan Kohl.