Mar 20

 

Add icons to the specification node or the requirement to illustrate their type or their priority. These attributes may not be used by the test converter. For example, using the TestLink 1.9x converter, if you insert a priority icon on the specification, it won’t be converted, as only a test has the attribute "importance" in TestLink

See Configuring the converters to learn more.

 

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Mar 20

 

  1. Projects
  2. Requirements specification
  3. Tests suites
  4. Test cases
  5. Test steps
  6. Describing the specifications or the suites

 


 

To be accurately converted, your mind-maps have to comply to few specific rules. These rules have to be kept in mind during or after your brainstorming sessions when you reorganize all collected ideas.

Have a look on provided samples (stored in the installation folder). They illustrate what can be done with a mind map.

 

Projects:

 

A project is the central topic/node of your map. This may represent a real development projet, a sprint or just a point you want to work about, like a specific new feature for example. Around this central topic, you define your requirement specifications or test suites. Each requirement specification or test suites HAS TO be placed in a cloud/boundary.

Depending on the capabilities of the test converter, you can save the projet as a whole, in a single file, and/or its requirement specifications / test suites.

 

 

Requirement specifications:

The mind-map for requirements is naturally organized around a central topic which represents the project, the product or the sprint for SCRUM aficiodanos. The requirement specification HAS TO be placed in a cloud/boundary to be recognized by the converters. Each sub-topic then represents a requirement, a feature, a use case…

The example at the right shows a requirement specification "User Interface"  composed of 3 requirements.

The level of nodes after the requirement represents the description of the requirement. All these nodes will be concatenated in the requirement description. In the example, you can see that the 2nd requirement "The application can be dragged" is described by 3 sub nodes, that will be converted to 3 sentences in the description property.

Other requirement specifications can be also nested as shown below:

This allows you define different levels and a convenient organisation of your requirements.

Each child requirement specification HAS TO be placed in a boundary as well. If not, it will be converted to a single requirement. In our example, the specification "Specification with child specifications" has 2 child specifications and 3 single requirements.

 

 

Tests suites:

Tests suites are sub-topics around the central topic, representing a test project or a test repository that you need to define. A tests suite can also be nested within another tests suite. The tests suite contains the tests you need to import into your test management tool.

A tests suite can be empty but it is expected it contains at leat 1 test case.

A test suite HAS TO be placed in a cloud/boundary to be recognized by the converters. In the exemple, the node "Options" is a test suite and contains 5 test cases.

As a test suite can be nested in a parent test suite, you are free to define different levels and a convenient organization of your tests. The child test suites HAS TO be placed into a cloud/boundary. If not, the test suite will be converted to a single test case.

 

 

Test cases:

Test cases are sub nodes of a test suite. The structure of the test nodes depends directly on the Test Structure option which defines the corresponding test properties according to the node order. You must set the Test Structure option to reflect the capabilities of your test management tool AND your personal preference. It must be comfortable for you while working on mind-map.

Check the example below, considering that the Test Structure option defines the following order:

  1. description
  2. stepsList
  3. postconditions
  4. preconditions

The "Setting Always on top" test case has 3 nodes that will be converted respectively to the descriptionstepsLists and postconditions properties. As there is no 4th node, the property preconditions won’t be used. This example is adapted to TestLink 1.8x.

Each node/property can contain as many sub-nodes as you want. These sub-nodes will be processed by the test converter according to its specific rules. But you should consider that

  • for a text property (descriptionpreconditionspostconditions): all sub-nodes will be concatenated to a single text block,
  • for steps, each node represents a single step.
  • if a node is blank, its coresponding property will be null.
    • In the previous example, the "Setting Always on top" test case could have been defined without steps by placing a second node with no caption.

 

 

Test steps:

Test steps are SUB-nodes. They can, at their turn, contain sub-nodes representing the step expected results. You can define as many node/expected results as you need. The "expected results" property is a text property, so all nodes will be concatenated to a single text block.

In the example below:

  • the step "Click the options button" has 1 expected result in 1 node.
  • the step "Close the options" has 2 expected results each in one node. 

 

 

 

How to describe the specification/suite it-self ?

Add a note to the specification node. It will be converted as the specification description.

 

 

 

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Mar 20

 

  1. Tools
  2. Configuring your converters
  3. Test structure
  4. Prefixes
  5. Others

 


 

Mind2Tests allows you define several useful options and configure your converters. Here is the list of parameters you can change:

 

Tools

Select, in each drop list, the tool you want to use for your conversion.

The drop lists contains all the libraries you have installed for Mind2Tests.

To uninstall a library, click the uninstall button at the right of the drop list. You will be asked to confirm your choice.

 

Configuring the converters

Once you have selected the tools you want to work with, you must configure them to:

  • define some values corresponding to your personnal preferences

  • make their settings match together.

In the screenshot below, you can see that 2 categories of settings are available: priorities and requirement types. They relates to how you identify these attributes in your mind-maps. See the chapter Defining your mind-map.

The list at the left is for the name of the icons used in your mind-map. The list at the right is values to be set in the test management tool.

In the section, you can:

  • Edit the default value in the list to enter your own ones,

  • Reorder the items in the list using the up and down arrow at each line,

  • add new values, even blank ones, using the + green button,

  • remove a selected value from the list using the - red button,

  • restore the default settings.

The matching between the parameters is simply done according to the order of the items in their respective list. In the example of the screenshot, which is a default configuration, you have:

  • The test or the requirement marked with the icon named "priority-1" will get the priority "High" in the test management value,

  • The test or the requirement marked with the icon named "priority-2" will get the priority "Medium" in the test management value,

  • The test or the requirement marked with the icon named "priority-4" or below won’t get any priority value.

Do the same in the requirement type tab.

Notes:

  1. The icon names to be used in your mind-maps are detailed in the wiki page of each library. Go back to the download table to get the urls.

  2. If you don’t use a value, remove it (you will add it later if required) or bypass the matching process by putting a blank value at the right place in the list.

Example:

In this configuration, there is no icon defined to illustrate the requirement type "Informational

  1. Be aware that if you change the order or the labels of the properties for the test management tool, this may affect the result of the file import. It actually depends on how the test tool converter works. Refer to its specific help/wiki/readme.

 

Test Structure

This section is very important and determines how the test cases in your mind-maps are converted.

To play with this option, you must understand how to define your test case in a mind-map.

This option allow you to define the order in which the sub-nodes of your test case node are interpreted. So adapt the order of the test properties in the list to the way you work in your mind-map and the capabilities of the test management tool.

Use the arrows at each line to move the item up or down in the list.

In the example, which illustrates the default settings, the 1st sub-node will be converted to the description property, the 2nd sub-node to a pre-conditions property, the 3rd one will represents all the test steps…

Notes:

  1. If, in your mind-map, your test node has only 1 sub-node, it will be considered as the 1st item in the list, ie the test description/summary in the example.

  2. If, in your mind-map, a test node is not complete (preconditions not defined), place an empty sub-node at the corresponding position (the 2nd one in our example). This is illustrated in the provided samples.

  3. Put the properties that you don’t use/need at the end of the list. For example, TestLink 1.8x don’t make use of pre-conditions which is new in TestLink 1.9x. So move the "preconditions" items at the bottom of the list if you want to import into TestLink 1.8.

 

Prefixes

You can define a prefix that will be added at the beginning of:

  • Requirement ids (not names)

  • Test suite names

  • Test cases names

This is not mandatory of course, use these options, if you need them for your day-to-day work or for specific projects you are working on.

Examples:

  1. If you define "req_" as a prefix for requirements, the requirement having the id 2.3 will get the id "req_2.3" after the conversion..

  2. For your project PROJ2011, you decided to prefix all the tests cases with the project code. So set "PROJ2011-" as test cases prefix and the test "Login", as defined in your mind-map, will be converted to "PROJ2011-Login".

 

Others

Auto save:

When a mind-map is dropped to the Drop Area, the application jumps directly to the Export from to save files.

You can still edit some items by selecting them in the Tree.

Check the option to activate it.

Always on top:

Check the option to keep Mind2Tests always visible, in front of all other windows.

Drop area orientation:

This change the layout of the Drop Area. Define it according to your preference.

 

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Mar 20

 


 

Some other elements of the user interface are presented in the different topics of the Mind2Tests online help.

 

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Mar 20

 

Mind2Tests facilitates the feed of test management tools using the mind-mapping technique. This application converts your mind-map files to XML or CSV files that can be imported into your preferred test management tool (as TestLink in the first version of Mind2Tests).

You can convert:

  • requirement specifications, built during a brainstorming session with your users, business analysts…
  • test suites, composed of test cases or nested other test suites

You actually just have to drag and drop your mind-map file to the desired type of conversion, represented by a large button in the main interface and save the result to the appropriate format. That’s it !

 

You can then save:

  • the whole map as a project (in terms of requirements or tests)
  • separated specifications or suites
  • groups of requirements or tests

This actually depends on the capabilities of your test management tool. Before you save your files, you can also edit the data to change or format them a little bit.

Once you have your files, import them - manually - into your test management tool.

Mind2Tests can then add value during the  requirements or tests definition by either business analysts, product or project managers or testers:

  1. Mind-mapping is a fast technique to gather information/data and organize them
  2. Mind2Tests help you import your work as a breeze into your test management tool.

 

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