One special aspect of gwt-maven-plugin to be familiar with is that it runs its own special test goal in order to support GWTTestCase and GWTTestSuite derived GWT tests. If you're not familiar with GWT testing support you should first read the related documentation.
We do not consider GWTTestCase to be unit test as they require the whole GWT Module to run. For this reason, the test goal is bound by default to integration-test phase. But this is only our point of view and you may want to run such test during the standard test phase, and maybe use a profile and naming convention to execute such tests on demand.
Another option is to use the MVP design pattern to keep your code and UI components separated. In such case, GWT MockUtilities will help you disable Defered Binding (that requires a full GWT stack) and use mock components.
It's a long story as to why a dedicated gwt:test is needed, but in few words the regular Maven Surefire testing plugin requires some complex setup to work fine with GWTTestSuites. If you really want to do so, here is a sample configuration :
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.6</version>
<configuration>
<additionalClasspathElements>
<additionalClasspathElement>${project.build.sourceDirectory}</additionalClasspathElement>
<additionalClasspathElement>${project.build.testSourceDirectory}</additionalClasspathElement>
</additionalClasspathElements>
<useManifestOnlyJar>false</useManifestOnlyJar>
<forkMode>always</forkMode>
<systemProperties>
<property>
<name>gwt.args</name>
<value>-out ${webAppDirectory}</value>
</property>
</systemProperties>
</configuration>
</plugin>The gwt-maven-plugin testing support is not intended to be run standalone, rather it is bound to the Maven integration-test phase. To get gwt:test to run, you should include the test goal in your plugin configuration executions, and you should invoke mvn verify (or mvn install).
<project>
[...]
<build>
<plugins>
[...]
<plugin>
<groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
<artifactId>gwt-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.8.1</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<goals>
<goal>test</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
[...]
</plugins>
</build>
[...]
</project>Because you will likely want to run both Surefire and gwt-maven-plugin based tests (for regular server side JUnit tests with Surefire, and for client model and controller tests with GWT) you need to distinguish these tests from each other. This is done using a naming convention.
You can configure the Surefire plugin (responsible for running tests during maven build) to skip the GwtTests using some naming patterns :
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.6</version>
<configuration>
<excludes>
<exclude>**/*GwtTest.java</exclude>
</excludes>
</configuration>
</plugin>A simpler way to separate classic and GWT tests is to name latests GwtTest"Something".java. As surefire looks for tests that are named Something"Test".java by default, they will be ignored during test phase.
By default, the gwt-maven-plugin uses GwtTest*.java as inclusion pattern so that such testst will not match the standard Surefire pattern. Using this convention you don't have to change your configuration.
To configure the plugin to use another naming convention, set the includes plugin parameter.
<plugin>
<groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
<artifactId>gwt-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.8.1</version>
<configuration>
<includes>**/CustomPattern*.java</includes>
</configuration>
<executions>
<execution>
<goals>
<goal>test</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>The plugin use the standard Surefire testrunner, and contributes to execution report. If you use the surefire-report-plugin, you will see the GwtTests result included in generated project site.
The Official GWT documentation on TestSuites suggest to grouping your GWT tests in a suite by extending GwtTestSuite. Maven will not be able to run such a Suite. The snippet below is what will allow both the Eclipse Junit Runner and Maven to run the test cases.
public class MyGwtTestSuite extends TestCase /*note this is TestCase and not TestSuite */
{
public static Test suite()
{
GwtTestSuite suite = new GwtTestSuite( "All Gwt Tests go in here" );
suite.addTestSuite( GwtTest1.class );
return suite;
}GWTTestCase derived tests are slow. This is because the JUnitShell has to load the module for each test (create the shell, hook into it, etc). GWTTestSuite mitigates this by grouping all the tests that are for the same module (those that return the same value for getModuleName) together and running them via the same shell instance.
This is a big time saver, and GWTTestSuite is easy to use, so using it is a good idea. For this reason, the default value of the test inclusion pattern is **/Gwt*Suite.java.
We recommend to name your test suite GwtTestSuite.java so that the test filter picks it up, but name the actual tests with a convention that Surefire will ignore by default - something that does not start with GwtTest, and does not start or end with Test. For example MyClassTestGwt.java. This way, gwt-maven-plugin picks up the Suite, and runs it, but does not also run individual tests (and Surefire does not pick it up either)
GWTTestCase uses HTMLUnit to run your code. HTMLUnit doesn't provide a full browser with GUI components, but is 100% Java based so it doesn't require a native process and can run in your favorite debugger. Please note this is only emulation, always validate test results with a real browser.
By default, tests run in DevMode. As an option, you can run your code compiled to JavaScript instead of using the dev mode bridge between Java and JavaScript, using the productionMode parameter. GWT Team suggest that you run your tests in both modes to detect differences between Java and JavaScript. You may configure your continuous integration server with -Dgwt.test.prod=true system property to check this.
Running headless is usefull, but when it fails you'll need to see what happen and use your own browser. In such case, use the manual mode using the mode parameter (or gwt.test.mode system property) to "manual". GWT will then print a URL to access from your browser.
You may also want to test your code on various browser, not just the hosted mode embeded one. You then need a remote browser available for testing. See GWT documentation for more explanations.
Selenium mode can be used for running your test suite on real browsers using Selenium RC. Set the mode parameter (or gwt.test.mode system property) to "selenium". Don't forget to configure the selenium parameter with the host running the Selenium RC browser:
<plugin>
<groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
<artifactId>gwt-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.8.1</version>
<configuration>
<selenium>myhost:4444/*firefox"</selenium>
</configuration>
</plugin>