User:Jonathan Watt/PaintTest
Note: all the documents here are very early drafts.
PaintTest is a test format and abstract framework designed for automated testing of the visual output produced by implementations of XML formats such as XHTML and SVG. PaintTest is derived from David Baron's inspired reftest format. Tests created using PaintTest are equally useful both as automated regression tests and as automated conformance tests.
Typically different implementers pick different parts of a standard to work on relatively arbitrarily, and they make next to no exchange of tests they create as they implement features and fix bugs. For authors, the end result of this lack of collaboration is that implementations support different subsets of a given standard, and each implementation has vastly different sets of bugs and interpretations of the specification. Getting content to work in multiple implementations is very often a frustrating nightmare, and as a consequence, multi-implementation, open standards that have competition see significantly less uptake than they otherwise would.
The primary motivation behind PaintTest is to drastically improve interoperability and reduce the amount of pain experienced by content authors when trying to write content that must work in multiple independent implementations. The intention is to enable the creation of suites of automated tests that can and will be used and contributed to by multiple implementation vendors (and by others).
and the health of the Web. As well as leading to a better Web, it would allow collaborating developers to spend more time coding and less time duplicating test efforts. However, to get to that stage would likely take a fair amount of work, and it would require answers to questions like "how are changes to [specs for] shared frameworks or for tests agreed upon, made and distributed?" and "where do they live?"
Some of the following documents are generic, some are SVG specific. It needs some work to separate out the details.
- TestFormat
- TestLicensing
- TestSuiteOrganization
- SubmittingTests (should come under process and infrastructure)
- ReviewProcess
- DisputingATestsValidity