I often use dates in scripts, especially for logs, filenames etc. and I hate it when I end up with single digit days or months in them.  For example 2008121 the 12th of January or the 1st of December?  I also find it annoying when the dates are formatted differently so don’t sort correctly i.e.

2007122
20071228
20071229
2007123
20071230
20071231
200811
200812

So, I use this nifty little vbscript function to pad dates to 2 characters

function pad(pstring,pnochars)
      pad = right(100+pstring,pnochars)
end function

So I can now get a date in YYYYMMDD format using this:

MyDate = year(date)  & pad(month(date),2) & pad(day(date),2)

It’s not rocket science, I realise, but I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve used this function.

There has been quite a lot going on recently; we’ve taken on more customers of Ken TestMan; we’ve been working on version 3.5 and we’ve moved the site over to this new format.

New Site Format

This site and the site of the company that makes Ken TestMan, Henshuu Limited, have had a style update to present a consistent appearance.

We’ve also taken the opportunity to update some of the content to make it as easy as possible to see what Ken TestMan is above. 

We want to be very clear about what Ken TestMan does, what it looks like and what it costs. 

So we’ve now got:

• an overview that tells you about Ken TestMan.
• some screenshots so you can see what Ken TestMan looks like.
• the pricing page to see the 3 different editions and which is right for you
• the support page to see how you can get further information or help

Unfortunately during this process, we lost the pages that allowed you to download the free version of Ken TestMan.  This is back now download the latest free version of Ken TestMan now.

As part of the support information we’ve also been working on improving our online documentation and help.  Again this site matches this format so it’s all nice and coherent: http://help.kentestman.com

New Version

The biggest change in the new version is the architecture.  We’ve moved to a compiled DLL which gives us better performance, an easier to maintain code base and it gives us some controls that allow us to provide the 3 editions.

We’ve taken the opportunity to add in some additional features and improve the usability of some existing ones.  You’ll now see text boxes that you can resize to make editing easier, you’ll see AJAX is used to improve the user experience and you’ll see some improved charts and graphs.

We’ve been getting great feedback both from users of the Free version and of the commercial versions so thank you to everyone who has sent us your thoughts.  We’ve managed to incorporate some of these ideas into the 3 editions we provide.  The features in the Professional version will roll down into the Standard and Free versions over time.  

New Customers

I’d like to say welcome to all the new users of Ken TestMan, both paying customers and those that have downloaded the free version.

We’ve been staggered by the response and interest in Ken TestMan, so thank you all.

Version 3.5 marks a great point in the life of Ken TestMan, it gives us the foundation to build upon and we can now turn our attention to improving the existing features and building the new features that customers have been asking us for.

We continue to welcome your ideas and requests and where possible we will introduce as many as we can without compromising the point of Ken TestMan which is to provide an effective tool that helps you do your job better.  We will continue to focus on doing the simple things well.

Finally, we’ll also concentrate on trying to have more interesting blog updates, these have all been a bit dry.

As you may have noticed the site has gone through a bit of a style change.  This is to keep consistent with the company that makes Ken TestMan (Henshuu Limited), it has also given us the opportunity to update the content and make it as easy as possible to see what Ken TestMan does and what it looks like.

However, a side effect of this change meant we’d lost the ability do download the free version of Ken TestMan for a few days.

This has now been resolved and you can again download the latest version of our free test management tool.

The next commercial versions of Ken TestMan now sport groovy new resizable text boxes.

This means that if the text box is too small, just grab the bottom corner with your mouse and drag it down to make it bigger.

The size of the box is recorded in a cookie, so if you have cookies enabled then the next time you come to the screen the box will automatically resize to how you left it.

It’s only a small feature, but it’s incredibly useful if you record lots of information in these text fields.

We’re already using AJAX in Ken TestMan in a couple of places, but we’ve identified some areas where we could improve the usability of Ken by using AJAX more.

So, in the next version of Ken TestMan you see AJAX used more prominently, particularly the Project Overview page.

The overview page now shows a more comprehensive overview chart, which as a result takes a few seconds to generate.

We know that not everyone wants to see the chart, so instead of making you wait, we display the page immediately without the chart and use AJAX to show the chart when it’s ready.

This means that as a user you can continue to use the functionality of the page without having to wait.

When the page first loads you’ll now see something like this

Once the chart is ready, it’ll automatically be displayed in that space.

AJAX is a great way to provide features/information in a non obtrusive way, we can simply populate things in the background without slowing down the users that don’t want to see them.

This is just one example where it helps to improve the usability of Ken TestMan.

Happy New Year to everyone.

The end of 2007 was a busy time for us with over 400 people downloading the free version of Ken TestMan, which is excellent.

This took us a bit by surprise as other that some minor Google Adwords, we’ve done no advertising or PR so didn’t expect to get any significant level of interest.

Needless to say we’re delighted that people have downloaded Ken TestMan and as a way of saying thank you we’re working on some features for a new version coming soon.  Watch this space.

There was a hiccup with our domain name which meant that for a couple of days the domain name KenTestMan.com lead to a holding page that had nothing to do with us.

So, our apologies to anyone who tried to visit us and got that lady smiling instead of information about our Test Management solution.

It’s all back and resolved now, so it’s service as normal.

If you’ve read this blog before you know that we have a version of our Test Management tool available to download for free.

It is simply a cut down version of our commercial tool and it seemed like a good idea to make it available for people to download for free. 

I like the idea of offering a free version, it has a number of benefits.

• It makes me feel good that people are getting use out of something I created.
• It may help spread the word about Ken TestMan and what it can do.
• We can get feedback from users of the free version that can help contribute to some new features.
• It’s a good opportunity to get to know more about people who are downloading the software.  This information helps us to tailor our website.
• Maybe someone who likes the free version may decide to purchase the full version. 

I don’t hide the fact that one of the reasons for offering the free version is to bring attention to the commercial version in the hope that some people will buy the full version.

A recent discussion has me wondering if offering a free version is a good idea. It seems that some people may view a free version with suspicion, they see it as some sort of trap and that once they use it they’ll have to part with some money at some point, or they worry they’ll be bombarded with marketing emails. 

This came as a bit of a surprise to me.  It’s a common practice and I had assumed people were familiar enough with it not to worry.  I also made it clear in our privacy policy that we wouldn’t contact people.

I don’t know how much of a genuine problem this is, most of the people who completed the form seemed to use genuine details.  We’ve only had a few “aaa” and “bbb” type answers and most of those people never came back to download the software, so maybe the form is acting as a filter.

However, I don’t want anyone to view this free version with suspicion so: 

We still have a form asking questions about you, but it’s entirely optional and there are no questions for contact details, no email addresses and no phone numbers.  This means that anyone downloading the free version can be confident that there is no way we can contact them or bother them.

I want to make it clear that if you download the free version you will never be charged for any bug fixes that we make.  The method of support is via the forum and you will never be charged for this either.

There are no snags or catches in the free version, there are no adverts, no newsletters, no marketing emails, you don’t get pestered to upgrade.  We’ll never charge you for anything related to the free version and we’ll never send you unsolicited emails.

The interesting thing is that since we’ve implemented this change and users no longer need to provide any details, everyone has.

Not directly related to Ken TestMan, but of interest to people none the less is a new social networking site created by Rosie Sherry at DrivenQA.  It’s called Software Testing Club and even though it’s only been online for a few months it seems to have attracted some of the big names in software testing.

Fingers crossed it’ll become a valuable resource for sharing information with other software testing professionals.

It’s based on the Ning social networking site, so it’s on a tried and tested platform, I suggest going along and having a look. Visit Software Testing Club

It’s nice to see that we’re getting users from all over the world downloading the free version of Ken TestMan.  We’re still waiting to hear any feedback via the forum or emails so we’re assuming people have installed it and are happy.  If you do have any feedback, even if it’s just to let us know you’ve installed it, we’d be happy to hear from you.

I thought I’d post a couple of useful keyboard shortcuts that are within Ken TestMan.  I use them to speed up my navigation around the application, I’m a keyboard shortcut type of person.

On most edit screens like the Edit Test Case (see picture) or Edit Requirement screen you can select the following keyboard shortcuts.

CTRL and Z is the same as hitting the Cancel button.

Pushing the “Esc” button is also the same as hitting the Cancel button.

CTRL and S is the same as hitting the Save button.

On the top menu, if you want to close the drop down menu either click on the background of the page somewhere or hit the “Esc” button and it’ll close.