Testing Tool Matcher, New Playwright IDE, Flame Graphs and More! TGNS163

[00:00:00] Joe Colantonio Still struggling to pick the right testing tools for your team? Could no code automation finally help your whole team contribute to your test automation efforts? And is a new visual IDE about to change how you debug Playwright tests? Find out in this episode of The Test Guild News Show for the week of July 13th. So grab your favorite cup of coffee or tea and let's do this.

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[00:01:00] All right. First up, let's talk about a new way to finally stop guessing which testing tools might be right for your team, help you avoid costly trial and error. What is it? Check it out. I've been kicking around this idea for years. I finally put it together. It is The Test Guild tool matcher. We just launched it. It's a free online tool designed to help software teams select the right testing tools for their specific needs. And it's really easy. The matcher guides you through three simple questions. You can also dive into a little more advanced options, but it's just three high level simple questions, which are your current needs, application type and budget preference. And then it recommends a curated list of relevant tools. Currently, the tool covers various categories like functional performance, security, API testing, and it also allows side by side comparisons to support informed decision making. All right. So it's been a slow news week. Let me give you a quick demo of the tool. Just go to TestGuild.com, click on tools and test tool matcher. Under there, you'll see an option for either you can type in a tool directly if you know the name to see the details or if you want to be matched to a tool, just select your options. Let's select test automation execution. There's other options as well. Let's stick with this web application and free. Depending on what you choose, these advanced options change. For example, if you chose mobile, it then would have additional options to help you narrow down what you want. You could do multiple combinations as well. But let's just stick with the easy test automation web application with free. And let's do a Python based by my tools that bring up all the tools that are found in the database. Selecting the show more will show each tool in this pop up to expand. You could show more. If the tool has an MCP server, it'll be listed on the right hand side with the link directly to the MCP server. I just started adding these, so not all of them have them yet. You can also upvote tools that you like, and if there is a resource for this application, you'll see three resources or two resources, whatever. If you see that, you can click on show more, scroll down. Besides seeing the pros and cons and some key features, you can also see the resources and go to the resources to see more that cover that particular tool. If for some reason you have three tools you're interested in, you can just click on the plus signs. Select the three tools. That would give you a high level overview comparison. You can also have the report emailed to you as well. If there's a tool that's not here, if you want to see if your tool is available, you can just type it in. So let's say WebDriver.io. WebDriver.io is available because it has its own page. If it has a review, you can see the review. You can also write a review. I highly recommend you do if you have a tool you've tried and you like, leave a review for sure. And you can also see the resources listed down below as well for that tool.

[00:04:02] Joe Colantonio And as I mentioned, if there's a tool that's missing, you want to report an issue. This is Uber Uber Beta. So just click on report issue to report your issue. If you have a suggested tool you want added, just add the information here as well and we'll add it as soon as possible. I would love if you do me a favor, give it a try, send me some feedback. Let me know if I missed anything you could try for yourself using link down below.

[00:04:24] Joe Colantonio Once you have the right tools, what if anyone on your team can help with the automation testing effort or at least contribute a little bit to it? Well, this next update might be your answer. And this is by Raj, who is an engineering chapter lead and former Microsoft engineer has announced the release of an AI powered no code test automation framework built around the Playwright MCP. The Playwright MCP YAML test defines functional tests using YAML syntax, eliminating the need for traditional scripting. And the tool integrates with Playwright's MCP server to enable intelligent, context driven execution of tests. And it is designed to be accessible to folks that may not be really hardcore developers, including product owners, business analysts, and manual testers. And it's aimed to hopefully expand participation. In your automation efforts beyond just your engineering teams.

[00:05:14] Joe Colantonio Looking at my LinkedIn feed, I also came across this next announcement. It's by Arjun, who is the founder of Empirical.run. And he's also the former programming manager on the Playwright team at Microsoft. I actually interviewed him back in 2020, right when Playwright was released. I think I was one of the first people to really support it. But anyway, that's not the point. He just announced a new automation QA solution that he's positioned as the fastest QA automation engineer you can hire. Sounds like hype? I don't know. You have to check it out for yourself. But according to the announcement, empirical.run can generate and add regression test within 11 minutes of a new feature release leveraging a Playwright for test creation and execution. And the service integrates directly with Slack workspaces allowing teams to trigger and manage automated testing workflows without leaving the communication platforms and by focusing on rapid test creation and seamless team collaboration, the offering aims to help engineering teams catch regression tests earlier and hopefully to reduce manual testing efforts after feature deployments.

[00:06:14] Joe Colantonio And talking about making automation and tools faster and more accessible, here's a new visual IDE that makes Playwright testing feel almost fun and way more approachable for teams and trainers. Let's check it out. Sudharsan, who is a principal software engineer and former Amazon developer, has announced Playcraft, which they knew all in one visual IDE for Playwright which is now available on GitHub. So Playcraft allows users to write, run, and debug playwright tests visually and interactively directly alongside their applications and includes a built-in inspector and test recorder aiming to simplify the entire test development process. And the tool is designed to support not just developers and QA engineers, but also possibly trainers and educators making it well suited for hands-on workshops and live demos. And by lowering the barrier to entry, Playcraft encourages more teams to adopt end-to-end tests with Playwright more confidently and efficiently. I'd love to know if this helps you speed up your development and debugging. Give it a try. Let me know and you can try it using the link down below.

[00:07:16] Joe Colantonio Alright, enough about functional testing. Let's cover a little bit about performance testing. And here's a method to uncover what really might be slowing down your Postgres apps. Check it out. This is by Jan, founder engineer at Nile, has published a blog post detailing how to analyze. And this is all about how to analyze Postgres formats using flame graphs. And it goes into detail on how flame graphs help engineers visually identify bottlenecks and pinpoint functions or queries that require optimization. And in this post, Jan outlines the fundamentals of flame graphs and provides a step by step guide to generate them from your Postgres workloads. The approach is designed to make performance issues easier to understand and address, especially in complex data backend applications. I know a lot of people have been doing a lot a live coding and I know all of them use Postgres behind the scenes. So if this is you, here's something you should definitely check out to make sure your applications are developing while also perform it.

[00:08:10] Joe Colantonio If those that are more security minded testers, here's a major upgrade to I know, which is a favorite pen testing application. And this is by Parrot Security that just updated the Parrot OS to 6.4. This update includes Hack the Box edition of its distribution, which is pre-configured to use on the Hack the box platform designed to help simplify access for penetration testers and learners. Some technical updates to this platform as well is kernel support, updated Linux headers and approved driver capabilities. Also, the systems underlying tooling such as the Firefox browser, Python and various pen testing frameworks have been updated to the current stable versions.

[00:08:50] Joe Colantonio All right, for links of everything in value we covered in this news episode. Head in over to links in the comments down below. That's it for this episode of The Test Guild News Show, I'm Joe, my mission is to help you succeed in creating end-to-end full pipeline automation awesomeness. As always, test everything, and keep the good. Cheers!