Escape special characters - RubySelenium

We use JIRA as a defect tracking system. For a project we were not able to log defects in JIRA due to lack of time and frequent builds. we instead used google doc to log defects and track them. As the project moved on defects kept piling up. One fine day new manager took charge of this project and suggested to move all defects from googledoc to JIRA. 

The first thought that came to my mind was to use automation tool to log defects. without giving a second thought and not bothering about any other solutions, I started working on it, because It had been a long time since I used automation tool, This was the only reason for not thinking about any other alternatives.

I decided to use selenium with ruby for this task. First I recorded the script with Selenium IDE and then exported it as a Ruby test. when I ran the test I found something strange. I was getting an error "Incorrect password", whereas I was able to login manually into JIRA login page. I was hitting my head to figure out this strange behavior.

I tried to enter a passoword that didn't have special charcters, and the tool was doing it perfectly but when I gave it my original password with special characters, It was not even typing it.At one instance I thought of changing my password to something that doesn't have any special characters, But it was not possible.So I choose to put my query in selenium groups. I got a reply the next day. I want to share that with you.

In RUBY you need to escape the special characters, since my test was in ruby it was not working, when I escaped them with '\' it worked like a breeze :)

Any problem is not a small problem until it is solved 

I hope this post helps if you bump into a similar problem

HTML5+CSS+JS - Bringing power to browsers

I am amazed at the way browsers use is changing. The buzz word most heard with web developers is HTML5, because it comes with a lot of promise for web developers.

The new elements in HTML5 have helped companies to build games, make the user experience more interactive with audio support. one of the most common terms with game developers is the <canvas> tag. There are quite few libraries that have been built to showcase the power of working with canvas and the results are astonishing. HTML5+Javascript+CSS are becoming one of the powerful technologies to rollout smart apps that attract the users.

But, there are challenges as well like

IE doesn't support the canvas tag
Developed apps must be compatible with browsers and devices
Javascript is not considered to be as robust as programming languages like Java....
Performance issues

Its also a challenge for testers to test the apps built using these platforms, Though some apps are small but still they need to work well on all platforms. Time pressure to rollout apps ASAP still worsens the problems.

I have tried my hands to do some experiment using html5 and see what it is all about, my experience is that it is fun to play with these technologies, It doesn't need a heavy setup as with programming languages, You just need a text editor, and a browsers. The browser have very good debugging tools that makes it more easy. I found a lot of problems both from a developer's perspective and a tester's perspective.

I built a bouncing balls POC using HTML5, CSS and Javascript. It was fun.

I promised myself to jump to next level and build a nice game next time  :)