Closing Windows with Keyboard Shortcuts

 

Summary

When navigating through the help documentation in FireFox Internet browser, users are told they can close a window by pressing Ctrl-W. However, when the Help window is open, pressing Ctrl-W will not close that window. Pressing Ctrl-W on other windows will close them.

Application Description

Mozilla's FireFox is an Internet browser available for Linux, MacOS, and Windows. At the time of writing this presentation, FireFox was still pre-1.0 (meaning that it was still a preview release for testing purposes).

Test Design

This example demonstrates the use of Specification-based testing (or Spec-based testing). When Spec-based testing, the tester analyzes the program's performance based on what the specifications state.

For this presenation, we are looking at the specifications for shortcut commands given by looking in the FireFox help documentation. Since shortcut accessibility is an important part of most computer programs, then the documentation covering this topic should be as up-to-date as possible. We will take a look at the documentation and test the commands to verify that they function correctly.

Spec-based testing can be useful for determining the proper function of a program if the tester is unaware of how the program should perform. It is also useful to verify that the program and documentation match each other, such that users will be able to read the documentation to use the program correctly. However, keep in mind that documentation is often out of date or written by people who have not worked with the program directly.

Performing the Test

  1. Open Mozilla FireFox.
  2. Open the FireFox help documentation by clicking on Help->Help Contents:

  3. The Help Contents will now open into a new window:

  4. Click on 'Search':

  5. Once the Search box appears, type in "shortcut":

  6. Press 'Enter' to search.
  7. A list of results will appear. Select the one titled "Keyboard Shortcuts":

    Of all the shortcut commands, let's choose the 'Close Window' command. If this was a full testing project, we might try all of the commands, or a large portion of them.

  8. In the list of shortcuts and their keyboard combinations, Close Window's keyboard shortcut is Ctrl-W. Try to close the Help window now by pressing Ctrl-W.

Results/Relevance

Pressing Ctrl-W inside the Help window will not close that window. Ctrl-W apparently only closes main browser windows, and not subsequent Help windows. This is not specified in the Help section on keyboard shortcuts, and so it appears as if this is a bug.

Keyboard shortcuts are used quite often, most notably by web developers for quick access and disabled users for accessibility. To both of these groups, the inability to close certain windows with the Close Window command would be seen as a barrier to use.

Specification-based testing is very useful for finding areas to test. By looking up a common feature like shortcut commands, we see an entire list of shortcuts that we can then quickly and systematically test.

Similar Tests/Additional Notes

More information about the bug in this presentation can be found on Mozilla's Bugzilla site.

Reading the documentation, even if out of date, can often provide a fundamental (and extremely valuable) understanding of what a program does. If you do not have much experience with a program that you are required to test, try reading the documentation first. You most likely will find it much easier to navigate through the program's functions and components.

Configuration Notes

Testing Mozilla's FireFox v0.9.1 on:

Created 19 July 2004 for the CSTER

All images and written material ©Copyright Sam Oswald 2004

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