GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 318538
Implement a script recorder aimed at end-users.
Last modified: 2006-06-02 17:42:02 UTC
We discussed event recording at the summit QA BOF. GNOME has many smart users who would like to help but aren't coders/artists/etc, and it was suggested that a recording framework aimed at them could be very useful - they would be able to create regression tests and trim them to minimal testcases themselves. My vision for this would be a whole-desktop recording system. You'd switch it on, and it would record everything you do, until you switch it off. I think it ought to have a status area, showing what it's recording, to reassure the user about what is being recorded (obvious privacy concerns here). Some kind of editing would also be useful; Luis suggested looking at Sabayon for ideas re trimming extraneous things. You'd want playback/verification/duplication before upload.
Dave: In addition to the whole-desktop recording, it would also be nice if the user is provided an option to record only the actions specific to a particular application.
Muktha, yes, I agree we should let the user filter what is recorded, and that filtering by application is a large part of that. Perhaps allow them to restrict it to a *list* of applications, to handle for example the case that dragging and dropping attachments from nautilus onto Evolution is broken.
These are great ideas, thanks Muktha and Zack. The title of this bug is "Implement a script recorder aimed at end-users." I think we'll need to do some higher-level design, and to do that I think we need to figure out who we mean by "end-users", so I've started a thread on dogtail-devel-list about user personas. Assuming people like the proposed personas, maybe we should mock something up in glade?
I think we need to really work through the user stories to get at *what* really needs to be built here. I have heard 2 uses of the term "recording" surrounding these dicussions: 1) The user action recorder that captures to an executeable script (This is what most COTS windows functional tools define as a recorder), and there was some talk of 2) Something that would visually capture the running script for playback / verification later (ala vnc2swf or something like that). I have some thoughts about #1 and wil kick off the discussion on dogtail-devel-list.
Er, I should have closed this bug long ago. The recorder lives in dogtail/recorder and is named dogtail-recorder - creative, huh? It is still a work in progress, but it's already possible to record many scripts with it. It's GUI-based, too! :)