Opportunity: Manual Application Testing for Precise Beta1

The precise beta1 release is happening this week (I know, I know beta already!). Despite my short tenure in the ubuntu QA community, we've already seen a huge increase in the amount of manual application testing. I thank everyone who helped test when I and others have put out calls for testing this cycle. As part of our desire to continually improve our processes, I'm am adopting the checkbox tool to help do manual testing for the beta1 and beta2 releases during the precise cycle.

For anyone who participated in the Unity testing, you will remember how much nicer it was to use checkbox to deliver the tests and be able to submit feedback directly from your desktop. Running these tests was a huge part getting Unity 5.2 and Unity 5.4 out in precise. Didrocks posted about the response and subsequent lessons learned. For beta1 and beta2, I'd like to move this method of testing onto the default desktop applications.

There are two opportunities here to get involved. First of all, if your interested in helping test our default desktop applications, you will be able to do so directly with checkbox in a similar vein as unity. I will post instructions on testing this week. It will require you to install from a ppa, but I hope to remove the requirement for beta2 :-)

Secondly, if your an application developer who wants to get some testing done you can contribute tests directly to my bazaar branch on launchpad. I've written up instructions for doing so on the wiki. Currently the following testcases are being targeted. If you responsible for any of these applications and haven't spoken to me, I'd love to talk to you about increasing test coverage!

firefox
rythmnbox
empathy
thunderbird
nautilus
libreoffice
software-center
system-settings
deja-dup
totem
evince
file-roller
gedit
eog
gwibber
seahorse
ubuntuone
update-manager
shotwell

If you are a passionate user of any of these applications (or any other applications), get in touch with me as well! You can help contribute tests even if your not capable of submitting a merge request via launchpad :-) EDIT: Since so many have asked, if you can't contribute by submitting a merge request, update the ubuntu testcase wiki and then send me an email.  You can find my address here on my launchpad profile. I will incorporate your tests into the tool. Read the guidelines on the format, and then add the testcase to the applications page. It's important to get the format right so doublecheck your work! That said, please try going through the normal route of writing a checkbox test if you can -- they are really easy to do!

In closing, I would like to thank everyone who helped rewrite testcases on the ubuntu testcase wiki. These testcases were used as a leg up on getting tests for these applications, and have us off to a good start on getting more testing coverage for ubuntu's default applications. I would also like to briefly mention the future of testing for next cycle. My goal is to gather feedback from doing manual testing this cycle with checkbox and use it to blueprint the tools and parameters for how we plan on testing during the Q cycle. I hope to have some sessions around testing during UDS, and look forward to hearing from you about your experiences!