Spec Explorer Graduates from DevLabs to the Visual Studio Gallery - Spec Explorer 2010 Power Tool Released (aka Spec Explorer v3.3)

Visual Studio Gallery - Spec Explorer 2010 Visual Studio Power Tool

“Spec Explorer 2010 release 3.3 is now available! This release has new features and revisions. The home page has migrated from DevLabs to VS Gallery where Spec Explorer 2010 is now a Power Tool.

Features & Benefits

Spec Explorer 2010 is a tool that extends Visual Studio for modeling software behavior, analyzing that behavior by graphical visualization, model checking, and generating standalone test code from models. Behavior is modeled in two ways: by writing rules in C# (with dynamic data-defined state spaces) and by defining model scenarios as action patterns in a regular-expression style.

One of Spec Explorer’s major features is the ability to compose models written in these two styles …

…”

Spec Explorer 2010 Release Notes

“Version 3.3
September 27^st , 2010
For Spec Explorer 3.3.2796.0

Overview

Spec Explorer is an extension of Visual Studio® for creating models of software behavior, analyzing them, and generating and driving model-based tests.  Please read these release notes carefully before using this release.

What’s New in Spec Explorer 2010 Release 3.3

The following new features are provided in this release:

· Probe logging

· On-The-Fly (OTF) testing

· Test method customization

· State search

See the Overview section for more details.

A UML Spec Explorer extension is also being released at this time, but it is not included in the Spec Explorer MSI and must be downloaded separately. Documentation for the UML extension can be found here.

Please note that Spec Explorer 2010 Release 3.3 runs only on Visual Studio 2010. It does not work Visual Studio 2008. Please see notes in the Installation section of this document..

Additional details of these changes and other feature enhancement can be found below in the section entitled Overview of New and Enhanced Features. …”

Visual Studio Gallery - UML Extension For Spec Explorer 2010

“The UML Extension for Spec Explorer 2010 is a Spec Explorer extension for leveraging the UML modeling capabilities of Visual Studio to test from graphical models in addition to textual ones. The current version of the extension allows the use of Sequence Diagrams, which define artifacts similar to Cord scenarios in Spec Explorer.

Users can either use sequence diagrams to slice an existing model or as a stand-alone source to verify an existing system. Users must install Spec Explorer 2010to use this extension.” [GD: Description Leached in Full]

I like the idea of tools that help make my tools easer to test (man, I’m such a tool… Oh, did I say that out loud? ;)

Note that Spec Explorer requires “At least the Professional edition of Microsoft Visual Studio® 2010”

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Spec Explorer 1.0 – A “Visual tool for modeling software behavior and generating test suites from those models”