Release Notes

TestCentric Runner for NUnit 2.0.0-beta2- September 3, 2023

This release is part of a group of related releases:

  • TestCentric Runner 2.0.0-beta2
  • TestCentric Engine 2.0.0-beta2
  • Net 4.6.2 Pluggable Agent 2.1.1
  • Net 6.0 Pluggable Agent 2.1.0
  • Net 7.0 Pluggable Agent 2.1.0

Together they form a kind of plateau in the development of TestCentric and a basis for redirecting that development. Specifically, they will be the last releases where the code is constrained to remain compatibility with the NUnit engine and console runner.

At this point, it's clear that the NUnit and TestCentric engines are evolving in somewhat different directions and that re-merging the code is no longer very likely. The next releases of these packages - and other packages - by TestCentric will continue to support a certain degree of compatibility in usage but we no longer anticipate merging the two engines in the future.

Specific features in these releases:

  • There is no longer a zip package for the GUI
  • Agents may now be run from the command-line. (This is intended for testing and debugging rather than as a substitute for the use of the runner.)

Breaking Change

  • 986 Eliminate zip package

Feature

  • 817 Run the agent standalone

Enhancement

  • 990 Update GUI to match latest builds of the engine, pluggable agents and recipe.

Bug

  • 987 Need a better message if no agents are available

Documentation

  • 985 TestCentric.GuiRunner 2.0.0-beta1: no agents in zip package

TestCentric Runner for NUnit 2.0.0-beta1- May 9, 2023

This is the first beta release of the TestCentric Gui Runner.

The major change from the alpha8 release is that agents are now loaded separately from the engine. All built-in agents have now been removed from the engine itself. This completes our pivot to using pluggable agent extensions for all tests. At this point, the engine alone is no longer capable of running any tests. It's up to the runner making use of the agent to ensure that at least one agent extension is installed. To put it another way: the runner decides what kinds of tests it is capable of running and in what environments, not the engine.

In this release of the GUI, agents for .NET Framework 4.6.2, .NET 6.0 and .NET 7.0 are included as dependent packages.. The following additional agents are currently available for user installation: .NET 8.0, .NET 5.0, .NET Core 3.1, .NET Core 2.1, .NET Framework 2.0.

This release was built using the first production release of our TestCentric.Cake.Recipe package.

Features

  • 977 Add Net70PluggableAgent as a dependency of the GUI
  • 978 Add Net60PluggableAgent as a dependency of the GUI
  • 979 Add Net462PluggableAgent as a dependency of the GUI

Bug

  • 974 TestCentric.GuiRunner 2.0.0-alpha8: testcentric.extensibility.dll is missing in net462 agent

Build

  • 983 Update recipe to production version 1.0.0
  • 984 Update engine reference to beta1 release

TestCentric Runner for NUnit 2.0.0-alpha8- April 25, 2023

This release uses the alpha8 build of the engine and makes extensive use of pluggable agents, which had been available as an experimental feature up to now. Built-in support for the .NET Core 3.1 and .NET 5.0 runtimes has been removed and pluggable agents for each of them have been released as separate extensions. Without the extensions, such tests will now be run under .NET 6.0. In addition, tests may now be run under .NET 8.0 using the .NET 8.0 pluggable engine, available as a download from our MyGet feed. That agent is still in pre-alpha development.

The runner is now built using our cake recipe, TestCentric.Cake.Recipe, which was extended in order to support it.

Bug

  • 945 TestCentric 2.0.0-alpha7: Invalid DisplayStrategy and NullReferenceException

Build

  • 947 Add test of .NET Core 2.1 Pluggable Agent
  • 948 Make build script consistent with that of the Engine
  • 951 Add local-only test of .NET 8.0 pluggable agent
  • 955 Test with .NET Core 2.1 and .NET 8.0 pluggable agents, version 2.1.0
  • 957 Build using TestCentric.Cake.Recipe
  • 961 Use TestLevel to reduce number of package tests run
  • 967 Convert unit tests to use NUnitLite
  • 970 Update to latest engine build; eliminate built-in agents for netcore 3.1 and net 5.0
  • 971 Standardize testing of extensions
  • 972 Remove pluggable agent tests from build

TestCentric Runner for NUnit 2.0.0-alpha7- February 6, 2023

The primary feature added in this release comes from use of version 2.0.0-alpha7 of the test engine. The GUI is now able to run tests, which target .NET 6.0 and .NET 7.0.

Features

  • 706 Specify test run parameters on command-line
  • 890 Support use of VisualState when test assembly has changed.
  • 914 Update to use alpha7 version of engine
  • 933 Update Gui to use .NET 4.6.2 rather than 4.5

Enhancements

  • 774 Save and Restore Visual State for fixture and test list display formats
  • 906 Better handling of "dynamic" test groups

Bugs

  • 201 VisualState.xml should be saved before running tests
  • 901 Shown tooltip is hard to hide for failed test
  • 907 Missing output with failed test stack traces for Assert.Multiple
  • 911 Run Summary should close automatically when new run is starting
  • 941 Unhandled exception starting GUI if settings file is corrupted

Build

  • 934 Get build working again!
  • 939 Use TestCentric-specific environment variable names for API keys
  • 943 Make CHANGES file a pointer to the Release Notes

TestCentric Runner for NUnit 1.6.4- December 2, 2022

This release fixes a critical bug in version 1.6.3. In addition, due to changes in the environment and in Microsoft tool and runtime support, further changes were made to allow the build scripts to function.

Bug

  • 925 TestCentric-Gui 1.6.3 + NUnit IDriverFactory extension

Build

  • 929 Update cake scripts
  • 926 Update Version 1 GUI to build with current tools

TestCentric Runner for NUnit 1.6.3- July 31, 2022

Feature

  • 921 Remove Experimental GUI

Enhancement

  • 919 Eliminate dependency on CLR version when initializing TestCentric

Bug

  • 916 Testcentric 1.6.2 does not start when .Net 6.0 is installed

Build

  • 917 Set up branch for V1 releases

TestCentric Runner for NUnit 2.0.0-alpha6- June 18, 2022

Features

  • 903 Update GUI to use engine version 2.0.0-alpha6
  • 895 VisualState should handle adding new tests while maintaining the display correctly

Enhancement

  • 892 Visual state at reloading assembly

Bugs

  • 902 Get cancellation working using engine version 2.0.0-dev00050
  • 898 UI for stopping/killing test run is a bit confusing
  • 891 VisualState- When a single test is deleted other tests are mis-identified
  • 887 Tree view reload after assembly is reloaded

Documentation

  • 885 Document GUI Alpha releases

TestCentric Runner for NUnit 2.0.0-alpha5- May 14, 2022

This release includes major revisions to the UI. There is no longer a Test menu. Rather, all test execution is performed through the toolbar or the context menu. The toolbar now contains buttons for running all or selected tests, repeating the last run and running only failed tests.

Note: The selected (highlighted) test item in the tree is now referred to as the "Active" item. This is the item for which any detailed information is displayed, as in the properties tab, for example. If Checkboxes are enabled, the checked items are referred to as "Selected" for running. If they are disabled, or if no items are checked, the "Active" item is also considered as "Selected".

Reflecting changes in the TestCentric engine, there are no longer built-in agents for .NET 2.0 and .NET Core 2.1. These will be provided by separately installed extensions. The .NET 2.0 Pluggable Agent extension is already available and used in our tests. The .NET Core 2.1 agent is being developed.

Breaking Changes

  • 842 Eliminate built-in .NET Core 2.1 agent
  • 841 Eliminate built-in net20 agent

Features

Enhancements

  • 872 Move RunSummary button next to progress bar
  • 871 Reorganize "Group By" functionality in the UI
  • 861 Disallow both ReloadOnChange and ReloadOnRun
  • 836 Convert command-line processing to latest version of Mono.Options

Bugs

  • 866 TestProperties tab panels not expanding to full width available
  • 854 Need a better way to run a subset of the tests
  • 853 test duration time is changing
  • 852 Assembly Reload: "Reload before each test run" does not work
  • 851 Double click test to start
  • 848 Incorrect display when opening a project file without the proper extension installed.
  • 846 Error when attempting to open an assembly targeting .NET Standard
  • 827 Mono,Win10 Error

Build

  • 844 Remove unused copies of engine files from the repository
  • 829 Eliminate TestCentric.Common project
  • 828 Make TestCentric Engine a separate project

TestCentric Runner for NUnit 2.0.0-alpha4- October 2, 2021

This release incorporates a critical fix to a bug, which caused the program to crash when run on a machine with .NET 6.0 installed.

Bug

  • 821 System.ArgumentException: 'Unknown .NET Core version: 6.0 Parameter name: version'

TestCentric Runner for NUnit 2.0.0-alpha3- September 30, 2021

The primary purpose of this release is to get a few more breaking changes into the repository. With this release, we switch to the dev-4.0 build of the NUnit Engine API, and stop building for .NET Standard 1.6 and .NET Core 1.1.

Breaking Changes

  • 809 Stop building for .NET Standard 1.6 and .NET Core 1.1
  • 808 Switch to the dev-40 build of the NUnit Engine API

Feature

  • 804 Remove references to the engine from the GUI proper

Enhancement

  • 705 Modify Arguments to Agent Process

Build

  • 813 Upgrade to the latest Cake version
  • 812 Use VS Project properties to generate the assemblyinfo files
  • 805 Stop use of Image Directory where not needed

TestCentric Runner for NUnit 2.0.0-alpha2- August 15, 2021

The 2.0.0 release will be the first major upgrade of the TestCentric Gui with a number of breaking changes as well as new features.

The primary change in this second alpha release is that the old Standard GUI is no longer used. The former Experimental GUI is now the only version of the GUI in use. The GUI also has a few new features in this release:

  • When using the full GUI layout, the progress bar now appears in the right-hand panel.
  • The Run Summary report is now displayed directly beneath the progress bar.
  • The toolbar now includes icons for normal and forced stop (kill) and for displaying a summary of the last run.

Features

  • 780 Restore TestPropertiesDialog for use with the mini-GUI
  • 762 Variable positioning of progress bar
  • 761 Make Menu Bar full width of main window
  • 758 Make "Stop Run" a separate button on menu bar"
  • 757 Remove "Run Failed" from split button choices in menu bar
  • 745 Port XmlView from experimental GUI
  • 744 Port PropertyView from experimental GUI
  • 742 Remove Not Run tab
  • 741 Move Progress Bar to left-hand panel
  • 740 Remove right-hand panel Run and Cancel buttons
  • 735 Remove Categories Tab from left-hand GUI panel
  • 732 Merge features of the experimental GUI into the 2.0 standard GUI
  • 609 Allow selecting normal versus forced stop
  • 230 Save and restore Visual state

Enhancements

  • 798 Improve Test Run Report Presentation
  • 794 Adjust PropertiesDialog Layout to be closer to that of TestPropertiesView
  • 790 Hide result box in TestPropertiesDialog when there is no result
  • 789 Display package settings in TestPropertiesView
  • 786 Show package settings at top of PropertiesDialog and only show for tests representing packages
  • 755 Display last run summary on demand
  • 737 Remove checkbox-related buttons from below tree display

Bugs

  • 791 TestPropertiesDialog does not update after test run
  • 788 Location of form should be saved before changing GUI layout
  • 783 NRE when File Menu pops up without an open project
  • 778 Visibility of StatusBar is not saved
  • 770 Need icon for display format button
  • 769 Groupings, which do not apply to the current display format, should be disabled
  • 767 GroupBy dropdown has no effect when changing

Build

  • 800 Retry failed publishing steps in build
  • 753 Move "common" gui components to the Gui project
  • 733 Remove unneeded conditionals from the engine

TestCentric Runner for NUnit 2.0.0-alpha1- June 30, 2021

The 2.0.0 release is the first major upgrade of the TestCentric Gui. It includes a number of breaking changes as well as new features.

Significant Gui Changes

  • The ProcessModel and DomainUsage menus have been eliminated.

  • A new Select Agents menu allows the user to choose a non-default agent when more than one is available for a particular assembly.

Significant Engine Changes

  • In-process execution of tests and the ProcessModel package setting are no longer supported. Each test assembly is now run in its own separate process.

  • The DomainUsage package setting is no longer supported. The runner itself decides whether an AppDomain should be used when running on a particular platform.

  • All test execution is now performed by agents, which are usually separate local processes. Agent selection may be automatic or user-specified using a package setting.

  • It is now possible to create "pluggable agents" by use of a new engine extension point. Currently, this capability is limited to local process agents, but it is intended to be extended to other agent types in the future.

  • Services are now initialized when they are first accessed through the service context rather than at startup.

  • There is no longer a .NET Standard build of the engine.

  • The metadata assembly is now a separate package, which is used by the engine.

  • X86 builds of .Net Core agents are no longer provided, since they are not needed.

Breaking Changes

  • 664 Replace AppDomain and Process with "Agent" from user perspective
  • 656 Pluggable Agents
  • 665 Eliminate ProcessModel setting
  • 657 Eliminate DomainUsage option
  • 444 Eliminate in-process execution

Features

  • 697 Agent Redesign
  • 694 Remove x86 build of agent for .NET Core
  • 693 Stop building engine for .NET Standard
  • 689 Remove DomainManager as a service
  • 684 Make metadata assembly a fully independent package
  • 678 Create package for use by pluggable agents

Enhancements

  • 715 Make dependencies of one service on another explicit
  • 677 Update AboutBox for 2.0 release
  • 666 Issue an error message when user provides an obsolete project setting. Ignore in project files.

Bugs

  • 719 Crashing Testcentric on trying to change Process Model to X86
  • 707 ResultHelper.Aggregate doesn't count warnings

Build

  • 729 Allow creation of draft and production GitHub releases for pre-release versions
  • 725 Upgrade NUnit framework to 3.12
  • 716 Provide test doubles for all services needed for testing.
  • 700 Use the GUI to run its own tests
  • 699 Create separate test assembly for nunit.agent.core
  • 682 Build script should check files for valid headers