Running generic stories via a web-based interface

The Web Runner provides a simple web-based interface to running generic stories. A typical use case is for BAs, QAs or stakeholders to be able to access the results of story running without needing access to developer resources, e.g. source control or build systems.

A fully functional example webapp is provided in trader runner example. We'll be using this example to illustrate the use of Web Runner:

  • Customise Web Runner
  • Deploy webapp to your favourite webapp container
  • Open page http://localhost:8080/trader-runner (assuming normal port conventions)

Run Story

The Run Story page allows the user to run any textual story and to display the result in the same page.

  • From Menu, click on Run Story, which will take you to a page where you can enter your textual story.
  • Input textual story in textarea (e.g you can cut & paste a scenario found in the trader scenario) and click on Run button.
  • Upon execution, the output of the story is shown below. By default the same output is shown as the one you would see when running JBehave via a command-line interface. This includes any details of failed and pending steps. If any failures occur, the user has the stack trace in an expandable section below.

Find Steps

The Find Steps page allows the user to find steps (i.e. methods in steps instances classes) and to display the patterns and the associated methods.

  • From Menu, click on Find Steps, which will take you to a page where you can enter your textual step.
  • Input textual step in textarea (e.g you can cut & paste a step from the scenario found in the trader scenario) and click on Find button.
  • A blank input will simply show all the steps that are configured.
  • Upon execution, the steps found are shown below. By default, only the patterns are shown, but you can choose to also display associated methods.
  • The final section shows the steps instances that were configured and were used to find steps.

Data Files

The Data Files page allows the user to upload and view any data file that may be used during the execution of the story. Data files can be either single text files or zip archives. If archives, these are automatically unzipped when upload to the server.

  • From Menu, click on Data Files, which will take you to a page where you can view the files already uploaded to the upload directory (defaults to "/tmp/upload" but is configurable via the WebRunnerApplication#uploadDirectory()).
  • Use the Browse and Upload buttons to upload any file to the upload directory.
  • Use the Show Content and Hide Content buttons to toggle display of uploaded file content.
  • Click on View link next to the files to view their content.
  • Use the Delete button to delete any selected files.