Re: Tweaking default java.awt.Robot settings

[Lillian Angel <langel@redhat.com>]

Steve McKay☄ wrote:
>> While it might be incorrect, I am unsure how else we can determine that
>> the correct key was pressed without dispatching an event.
>>     
>
> As I know understand it, when the Robot's keyPress is called, it
> should make a keypress happen on your desktop. So if the myFrame
> window has focus, a keyPress event would be generated, otherwise, if
> your editor is focused, it'll get the key press.
>   

That's right. If these two lines...
KeyEvent e = new KeyEvent(f, KeyEvent.KEY_PRESSED, 0, 0, code, chr, 
KeyEvent.KEY_LOCATION_STANDARD);
f.dispatchEvent(e);

...are removed, myFrame.keyDown is not called and therefore, this.key is 
not set. As it seems, the Robot function keyPress is not dispatching the 
event to the Component.

Lillian

> Does anyone know if Selenium uses Robot to do its poking and prodding?
>
> --steve
>
>   
>> Lillian
>>
>>     
>>> It appears h.check is in gnu.testlet.TestHarness and that it simply
>>> does an immediate check with no waiting.  The dispatchEvent call is
>>> going to cause the listener to fire regardless of what's happening
>>> using Robot.
>>>
>>> This looks like an incorrect test, and what I'd recommend is:-
>>>
>>> a) ditch the two lines saying KeyEvent / dispatchEvent ... they are
>>> completely subverting the intent of the test
>>>
>>> b) insert some code so the runTest method waits for the listener to be
>>> triggered.  Such as a wait and notify type of semaphor.
>>>
>>> c) I don't know how the test guarantees runTest executes on the event
>>> dispatch thread.  Is the EDT as important to classpath as it is to
>>> Sun's Swing?
>>>
>>> - David Herron
>>>
>>>
>>> Steve McKay☄ wrote:
>>>       
>>>> So would you recommend I ignore the test, delete it, add a comment, ...?
>>>>
>>>> --steve
>>>>
>>>> On 9/24/07, David Herron <David.Herron@sun.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>         
>>>>> Steve McKay☄ wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>           
>>>>>> Hi All,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I've noticed that at least some of the tests using java.awt.Robot are
>>>>>> non-deterministic due to lags is the underlying window system. The
>>>>>> java.awt.Component.keyPressTest, for example, fails some of the time
>>>>>> (on linux, windows, linux+wine, ...). It looks like enabling
>>>>>> autoWaitForIdle (waits for the awt EventQueue to be empty before
>>>>>> adding new events to the queue), and setting autoDelay (pauses for an
>>>>>> arbitrary period of time) to some magic number of millis well above
>>>>>> zero (I use 100) significantly reduces failures. Would anyone object
>>>>>> to configuring the Robot with settings like this by default? If no,
>>>>>> should the config mechanism be updated to allow tweaking these
>>>>>> settings?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>             
>>>>> I don't know what the classpath implementation of Robot looks like, but
>>>>> I do know what Sun's Linux/Unix implementation looks like (having
>>>>> written the original version).
>>>>>
>>>>> Generally Robot has to request the OS or X11 to synthesize the event.
>>>>> On Windows there's a direct API call, while on Unix/Linux there is a
>>>>> child process which ends up calling XTEST extension methods.  In both
>>>>> cases it means there is a nondeterministic delay due to the current
>>>>> process scheduling characteristics of the given system.  In other words
>>>>> it depends on an external entity, who Robot cannot coerce into
>>>>> performing the request within a bounded set of time.
>>>>>
>>>>> I think that means depending on Robot doing it's thing within a given
>>>>> period of time is an invalid test.
>>>>>
>>>>> Robot does not add events to EventQueue but it requests the OS to
>>>>> synthesize an OS-level event.
>>>>>
>>>>> - David Herron
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>           
>>>>
>>>>         
>>     
>
>
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