TestSuite

Overview of the CellBlender Test Suite:

The CellBlender Test Suite consists of a somewhat simple add-on designed to help developers quickly run through a series of CellBlender tests. As of this writing, the test suite contains 22 tests and it takes less than 2 minutes to run through all of them.

The test suite works by invoking the various Blender/CellBlender operators and setting various Blender/CellBlender properties. Eventually, each test generates an MDL file which is checked against a "known good" MDL file for that test. If they match identically (comparison of SHA1 hash), then the test passes. If they don't match, Blender exits immediately ... so there is little chance of not noticing a failure!!

Each test is run by completely reinitializing the CellBlender add-on and then invoking the operators and setting the properties needed for the test. That means that CellBlender should NOT typically be enabled when running the test suite. The test suite will do that automatically for each test.

Resetting after each test is done by reloading the startup file. In other words, the startup file should contain the desired pre-test configuration of Blender. That will be the configuration of windows, panels, etc that you want to have for the start of each test. All objects in the scene will be deleted by each test anyway, so it's suggested that all objects (cube, camera, lamp...) be removed before saving the startup file to eliminate any confusion. The CellBlender Test Suite panel has convenient buttons for "Load Startup" and "Save Startup" to make this easier.

Preparing to run the CellBlender Test Suite:

1. Create a directory (folder) for your testing files and start Blender from that location.

2. Start with a fresh startup file ( File/Load Factory Settings, File/Save Startup File, File/User Preferences/Save User Settings, close )

3. Enable the CellBlender Test Suite: ( File/User Preferences, Add-ons, Cell Modeling, CellBlender Test Suite, Save User Settings, close )

4. Properties Panel, Scene tab, collapse all sub-panels except "CellBlender Test Suite"

5. Set Path To MCell Binary, collapse "Setup Panel", click "Save Startup" button

6. Configure windows and other features as desired for testing, click "Save Startup" button again.