Testing and Automation Tools to Save a Developer’s Time

Run-through

AI-Powered Chatbots in Customer Service and Engagement

Using AI for customer service in your company is a definite method to save time and money. If you’re like most business owners, you’re constantly searching for fresh, creative ways to improve your enterprise. We’re here to inform you that improving AI customer service is a simple and rapid win.

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Dmytro Zaichenko
He is a Marketing Specialist at Mailtrap, a product helping to test emails at the developmental stages. He has over 6 years of experience in content making. Apart from writing, he’s passionate about basketball and collaborating with the dev team.
For many software engineers, having a well-configured set of solutions is critical for their productivity and results delivered. Mostly, it is the automation and testing that makes it possible to speed up software development processes and increase the efficiency of work on projects of every developer.

This article will describe 8 handy tools, the use of which will increase the productivity and quality of the final product, help with testing and automating recurring tasks, and reduce the time required for product development.

#1 Atom.io

Atom.io is a popular free code editor created by GitHub developers. It is actively evolving, there are hundreds of plugins for it, and it is customizable to fit your needs.
Atom.io is built on Electron technology, so it runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS. Among the basic features of the editor, which available immediately after installation, are the following:

  • Syntax highlighting for many popular languages ​​and file formats.
  • Convenient navigation.
  • Built-in Markdown preview.
  • Smart autocompletion.
  • Built-in package manager. The package manager is needed to install and remove plugins.

For easy JavaScript development for the backend and frontend, you need to install several plugins.

Painkiller: clean and clear code editing.

#2 Postman

Postman is a popular platform among developers for testing the work of APIs or simply sending POST and GET requests to the server. It’s much more convenient than other similar utilities. You can very easily customize the cookies, HTTP headers, and form parameters.It allows you to conveniently check the operation of any API or a website.

Postman is designed to check requests from the client to the server and receive a response from the backend. It is possible to describe the flow in the form of a dialog between Postman and a backend.
Such a positive dialogue occurs if there are no errors and a backend developer has done everything according to the documentation.

Painkiller: effective collaboration for API development.

#3 LambdaTest

LambdaTest is a solution for cross-browser compatibility testing. You can test and fix layout and responsiveness problems easily. LambdaTest has a free limited version and closed source software that runs on many platforms, including Chrome, Web, WordPress, and all other best CMS systems.

Automated Screenshot Testing captures bulk screenshots from different desktops and mobile devices running on different operating systems. To submit test information, the platform can integrate results into Asana, BitBucket, GitHub, JIRA, Microsoft VSTS, Slack, Trello, and more.
You can check the layout by selecting the Visual UI Testing menu. If screenshots are not enough, adaptability tests will help.

Painkiller: effective cross-browser automated testing

#4 GlockApps

GlockApps is another solution for developers who work with emails constantly. You can check the deliverability of your emails to different email services, errors in content and design, as well as recommendations for improving the content.

To check an email in GlockApps, you need to insert your text and send it to the list of suggested addresses. After sending, the service will give a detailed report. It shows email delivery rates, which folder they got in different mailers, and if they are present in different blacklists.

The service sends a test email to the domains of large corporations to check the deliverability. Among them are Amazon, Apple, and other big players.
A limited free version available, which will help you to get a closer look at this solution.

Painkiller: improving email deliverability

#5 AutoHotKey

AutoHotKey scripts help developers to save time for non-repeating tons of similar actions. It can be used to launch programs, open documents, emulate, record user keystrokes, mouse clicks, and mouse movements. In addition, AutoHotkey can assign, change variables in Windows, manage files and folders.

With AHK, you can use abbreviations in a special way for writing texts. For example, at any moment when the user writes “btw” – the system will automatically correct these letters and make it the world “by the way”. And this is only the most trivial case. When coding, a lot of abbreviations can be made for convenience.

Most scripts can be run simultaneously with the system so that there is no need to run them by specific keystrokes or opening. The following functions of the AutoHotKey are most often used:

  • Working with windows and any elements of the user interface.
  • Handling mouse and keyboard messages.
  • File operations.
  • Operations with graphic images.
  • Functions for processing strings

Painkiller: automation of recurring actions and hotkeys setup

#6 Puppet

Puppet allows you to configure operating systems to deploy, test, and update computer networks on thousands of remote machines. Its client part is fully compatible with a wide range of popular operating systems. With that, you can combine Windows, CentOS, Debian, or other systems into a single network.

Another benefit of Puppet: one administrator using the server can configure and manage hundreds and thousands of machines connected to the network. If there are any problems, it will allow the admin to quickly eliminate them.

At the same time, this advantage can turn into a drawback, when an administrator messes up with a Puppet configuration, the entire network can be damaged.

Painkiller: automation of remote networks and machines

#7 Cypress.io

Cypress.io is perfect for testing the interfaces of web applications. Its main task is to check how the client-side interacts with the server-side (end-to-end tests) and the individual components of the page with each other (integration tests). Users love this platform because:
  • Cypress operates at the network level and is capable of managing application traffic.
  • Easy to integrate into the project.
  • Has a separate Google Chrome browser.
  • Combines other types of testing in one platform.
Cypress works according to a predefined scenario. Even if you have never made tests before, you can figure it out thanks to clear documentation. The algorithm reflects the usual sequence of commands. The speed of its work deserves special praise. For example, a 100+ step test case runs in less than 3 minutes. All thanks to its architecture: Cypress is written in JavaScript, and the test runner is the browser itself. The higher the internet speed, the faster Cypress does its job.

Painkiller: fast and convenient testing of web apps

#8 Mailtrap

Mailtrap is an email sandbox service. It simulates a work of a real SMTP server. With the help of this solution, you can test emails without the risk of accidentally sending them to your clients.To inspect and improve your email marketing campaign, all you need to do is register on Mailtrap and configure it so that testing emails are send in a safe environment. You can check the rendered emails through the friendly interface of the service. Except for that, you can debug the HTML of your emails and evaluate spam rates. API integration is also available and is easy to set up. With Mailtrap, you can collaborate with your colleagues and forward testing messages between inboxes.

Painkiller: automated email testing in a safe staging environment.

AI-Powered Chatbots in Customer Service and Engagement

Using AI for customer service in your company is a definite method to save time and money. If you’re like most business owners, you’re constantly searching for fresh, creative ways to improve your enterprise. We’re here to inform you that improving AI customer service is a simple and rapid win.

Read More »

January 2023 Release Notes

Here’s what’s new in our January 2023 Release Notes:

* Tables Columns Sorting Improved
* Reconcile Commits Count Between KPI Card and the Table
* Efficiency Tab Improvements and Efficiency KPI Cards Align

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