How To Improve Your Application Performance

Applications are the lifeblood of any business. They have become the driving force of the digital age. As the demand for applications has grown, so has the complexity of these apps. With ever-increasing traffic and user numbers, application performance has becoming a major issue for businesses. To keep up with this demand, businesses need to know how to improve their application performance.

What Is Application Performance?

Application performance is the number of transactions completed in a period of time. In other words, it is how fast your app is performing.

There are two types of application performance:

– First-time user experience – How easy your application is to use on the first-time visit. You want to be sure that new users find it easy to navigate and discover all the features they need without any obstacles.

– Return visitor experience – How easy your application is for return visitors after they leave. They should be able to immediately access their previous information and accomplish what they originally set out to do with no wait time or delays in functionality.

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Different Types Of Applications

Before deep dive to know how to improve your application performance, you need to understand the different types of applications.

There are five different types of applications:

  • Web apps
  • Desktop apps
  • Mobile apps
  • Back-end (server) apps
  • Cloud applications

Most Common Performance Issues

Are you struggling to improve application performance? If so, these are some of the most commonly seen performance issues.

1. High Latency

High latency can be a big problem as it causes your application to be more difficult to use and results in higher abandonment rates. It also impacts user satisfaction and experience.

2. Bandwidth Consumption

As your application’s traffic grows, so does the amount of bandwidth it consumes. If you don’t keep up with the demand, your app will slow down dramatically or even crash due to lack of resources. This could cause customers to abandon your app altogether.

3. Server Limitations

If you have no room left on your server for more incoming requests, then your website may have trouble fulfilling current requests leading to abandonment or slower response time for new visitors who come back later on.

4. Application Crashes

Application crashes are a common issue when trying to optimize an application’s performance because they affect the user experience and engagement negatively leading people to abandon or lose interest in the app altogether often resulting in high abandonment rates and low conversion rates of visitors into customers.

How To Improve Your Application’s Performance

The key to improving application performance is making sure the application is constantly being monitored. When your application is constantly being monitored, you will be able to identify bottlenecks and optimize the system accordingly.

Another important step is always maintaining an up-to-date backup of your database so that if something does go wrong with your server, you will have a safe copy of the data in case it needs to be restored. Finally, make sure your website has good uptime by implementing redundancy measures and monitoring your website during peak hours.

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To improve performance of an application we have to perform performance testing.

Performance Testing is a software testing process used for testing the speed, response time, stability, reliability, scalability and resource usage of a software application under a particular workload.

The main purpose of performance testing is to identify and eliminate the performance bottlenecks in the software application. It is a subset of performance engineering and also known as “Performance Testing”.

The focus of Performance Testing is checking a software programs

  • Speed – Determines whether the application responds quickly
  • Scalability – Determines the maximum user load the software application can handle.
  • Stability – Determines if the application is stable under varying loads

Various types of performance testing are there like, Load testing, Stress Testing, Volume testing etc.

Conclusion

Application Performance is the speed at which your application performs. It includes the speed of your website, app, and any other software or service you may be using. Whether you’re using a web application, a mobile application, or a software system, it’s important to keep in mind the impact of poor performance.

We at Andolasoft, testing applications using Jmeter tool to check their load. The objective is to identify performance bottlenecks before the software application goes live.

I’ve worked with the team at Andolasoft on multiple websites. They are professional, responsive, & easy to work with. I’ve had great experiences & would recommend their services to anyone.

Ruthie Miller, Sr. Mktg. Specialist

Salesforce, Houston, Texas

LEARN MORE

When we perform stress testing involves testing an application under extreme workloads to see how it handles high traffic or data processing. The objective is to identify the breaking point of an application.

When we perform volume testing large no. of. Data is populated in a database and the overall software system’s behavior is monitored. The objective is to check software application’s performance under varying database volumes.

At Andolasoft we have experienced testing professional to do various types of performance testing in latest technology. Hire us now to improve your website and application performance and engagement.

10 Most Reliable Cross-Browser Testing Tools In 2022

Are you in search of cross browser testing tools to measure your
web and mobile apps cross browser compatibility? Your search ends now, because I have a list of top cross browser testing tools in this article
for your needs. But let me tell you few basic things before deep drive to the list.

Cross Browser Testing is done to make sure your site or application visitors view you’re the way it was intended, they see it even though they use various browsers. However sometimes we face some situations, where the website
breaks on one browser and works on other browsers. It is only because that particular website is not tested properly on all the existing popular browsers.

What is Cross browser testing?

Cross Browser Testing is defined as the method of quality assurance that is used for web and mobile applications across multiple browsers. It ensures your
website quality on various screens. It is implemented to ensure the website’s functionality, design and it also includes testing a range of devices and operating systems that are used in the market and customer base. Also, the screen
revolution, OS Version, Screen size and browser versions all change and contribute to how someone is viewing the content, making the practice of cross-browser testing  an important aspect to understand the customer diversified experience.
After spending a lot on your website and application development using various Cross- Platform Framework, it becomes of no use if your
application doesn’t run smoothly in various browsers.

“People can access your website from more than just one browser, so it’s critical to conduct cross-browser testing”- functionize

Also, the fundamentally self explanatory web browser testing has an expansive amount of components. It understands the factors that can create an impact on the
web application and improve customer satisfaction, as ignoring its importance can create a negative effect on its reputation and bottom
line goals.

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Why is it Important?

There used to be many browsers that did exist across the internet, and these were mainly for desktops. Also, with a waterfall model of design process the developers can primarily make quarterly or monthly changes to the code, however
manually testing each one are relatively simple. However, time has changed and today’s users are on a multitude of devices, ranging from laptops, tablets, desktop and computers. Also, there are too many browsers with different versions that
can be counted at this point. With the parallel rise of mobile and desktop internet consumption, design and development has reached out to agile methodology. The developers can no longer make any yearly updates; instead there is a
continuous integration on updates by hour or day. Also, each browser responds to these code changes differently, and with every code change comes some risk that any of the browser/OS/device combinations might not respond according to your
expectations. The connectivity, layout, accessibility, performance and quality does vary slightly or exponentially from browsers, as each renders HTML, CSS and JavaScript differently. These tools can be used for
multi browser testing

Developers know and learn about the lowest risk browsers and devices, and use them everyday to see the product and their coding.

Top Cross Browser web and mobile application testing tools

1. TestingBot

TestingBot offers cross browser testing on more than 3000 operating system combinations and browsers, with various screen resolutions. You can test the web and mobile app manually by taking control of the real
browser and device from your own browser. Automated browser testing allows you to run Cypress, selenium and Playwright/ Puppeteer with high concurrency on various browsers, including Edge, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Edge.

Features:

  • It can support more than 3200 physical devices and browsers
  • It supports real device, visual testing, Headless testing, Performance Testing and Codeless Automation.
  • This supports Cypress, Selenium, Playwright and Puppeteer.
  • You can integrate these tools with Jira, Devops, Azure, Jenkins, Bamboo and more.

Benefits:

  • It provide 100% compatible Selenium/ Appium grid
  • It supports many other popular test frameworks like Playwright, Puppeteer and cypress.
  • You will get excellent support and documentation, which helps to test your applications and websites effortlessly.

2. LambdaTest

It is a Cross Browser Testing tool; it allows the developers and testers to perform cross browser testing on more than 2000 real browsers. It is a multi- browser testing tool with various screen resolutions.

Features:

  • It provides Online Browsing Compatibility Testing
  • Seamless collaboration and testing
  • Test Locally hosted Pages
  • Fast automated Screenshot/ Screenshot testing

Benefits:

  • It provides free trial to its users for lifetime
  • Fast automated Screenshots/ Screenshot Testing

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3. TestComplete

With TestComplete the Cross-Browser Testing enables users to quickly create automated GUI tests using a single browser and run them parallel across 1500 remote test environments. It includes Operating systems, browsers, resolutions
and devices. It helps to ensure complete test coverage and improve software quality.

Features:

  • It is an automated UI testing tool which allows you to maintain, develop and execute functional tests across desktop, web applications and mobile.
  • It run parallel across 1500 real testing environment
  • It is easy to develop one automated GUI test for multiple browsers.

Benefits:

  • You will get real time access to the latest devices, browsers, resolutions, operating systems and browsers

4. CrossBrowserTesting

It provides a user-friendly testing platform that allows performing cross- browser testing on various browsers including mobile platforms. It is available for iOS, Android, MacOS, Windows and Ubuntu.

Features:

  • Easy to run visual, manual and selenium tests on more than 2050 desktop browsers and real mobile.
  • As it’s an intuitive API, you can get access to almost every app.
  • It provides full access to almost every tool and extensions like firebug and chrome Dev tools.

Benefits:

  • Appropriate for quick testing
  • It offers free trial version
  • Provide option to select screen resolution and operating system

5. QA Wolf

It is a modern testing tool that can be used by the entire team. It helps in quick adoption to 2,700 GitHub stars at the time of writing. It priorities ease-of-use as the main differentiator and makes end to end test creation fast, powerful
and simple.

Features:

  • No installation or setup needed
  • No need of writing boilerplate code or learning programming languages
  • You don’t have to run the entire test, only you need to fix a line or two of the code.

Benefits:

  • Provide test results very quickly
  • Real time collaboration with team by sharing link
  • Re-run and fix test directly from the browsers

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6. SauseLabs

Saucelabs is a cloud based platform used for testing web and mobile applications. It offers instant access to many cross browser systems, simulators, browsers, mobile emulators, browsers and real devices.

Feature:

  • The tool supports multiple browsers including Firefox, safari, chrome, MacOS, iOS, Linux and android.
  • Test on real and virtual devices
  • Seamless develop integration

Benefits

  • It allow testing of mobile browser on real devices
  • Wide selection for emulators, real devices and simulators

7. Katalon Studio

It is a popular Selenium and Appium alternative used for cross browser testing by 8,50,000 testers and gaining the trust of
dedicated developers. It also offers scalable web, mobile and desktop testing,

Features:

  • It is compatible to latest version of chrome, edge and Firefox
  • It provide flexible test migration from selenium
  • It is built in integration CD/CI

Benefits:

  • Fast feedback on performance
  • It has self handling mechanism to handle UI and code changes

8. Browsershots

It makes a screenshot of your web design in various operating browsers and systems. As it is a free open source testing tool it provides the developers a convenient way to test the compatibility of their website’s browser.

Features:

  • It is a widely used compatibility testing browser tool
  • It easily handles navigation testing or scripting

Benefits:

  • It supports 200 different browser version
  • It offers great customization options for your browser
  • It offers free browser compatibility test

9. Browserstack Live

It is a mobile application and browser testing tools. It helps you to test your websites over 2000 browsers. With these tools you can test your websites on Android and iOS real devices. Live is a mobile application and browser testing tool.
You can test your website on 2000+ browsers, thereby making it one of the comprehensive browser compatibility tests.

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You can test your website on Android and
iOS real devices using their cloud platform. This tool is also useful for testing websites on different operating systems and real mobile devices.

Features:

  • No setup is needed. It starts with instant testing in the real cloud devices.
  • It covers more than 2000 desktop browsers and all real mobile device browsers.
  • It provides secure and private network

Benefits:

  • It supports almost every real mobile device browser.
  • It can instantly start testing on the real cloud devices.
  • It doesn’t need a device lab or virtual machines

10. SeleniumBox

Selenium Box is a grid which runs on-premises or in the corporate cloud is completely managed with high scalability. It offers execution of automated tests for mobile and web inside the corporate firewall. The product is designed for large
organizations that are security sensitive areas like banking , insurance and medical field

Features:

  • It is an On-Premise/ corporate cloud deployment tool
  • It works from desktop browsers, real devices and emulators/ simulators.

Benefits:

  • It is a secure tool that requires no tunnels or any external access.
  • It required no security
  • Maintenance free

I’ve worked with the team at Andolasoft on multiple websites. They are professional, responsive, & easy to work with. I’ve had great experiences & would recommend their services to anyone.

Ruthie Miller, Sr. Mktg. Specialist

Salesforce, Houston, Texas

LEARN MORE

FAQ:

1. Why is Cross- browser Web and Mobile application testing tools needed?

There are several browsers that exist across the internet and they are suitable only for desktops. More than half of users use the popular, low-risk browsers like chrome, Firefox. The bugs are mainly saturated in high-risk browsers like
internet explorer. So in such cases you want to direct your users who face issues to bugged browsers by updating the browser version or by downloading through different browsers altogether. Therefore it is important to conduct a thorough
test of your website or application through different browsers and see if it’s running well on every browser without causing any issue for the users.

2. When to choose a cross browser testing tool?

The cross-browser testing tools are used to offer a consistent behavior and experience across all the devices, browsers and platforms. The cross browser testing is done during-

  • During development
  • During staging or per-release

3. Who performs cross browser testing?

Usually who design/develops performs the cross-browser testing. The QA teams conduct the test for various browsers, in order to check the browser compatibility.

4. How to select a browser for testing?

You can conduct the testing on the browser by looking at the:

  • popularity of the browser
  • based on the analysis of traffic

5. What are the effective strategies required to follow while performing cross browser testing?

Modern cross browser testing needs more than just visual testing. Such as:

  • Ensure the codes are completely valid across the targeted browsers.
  • Check the operation is consistent for various pop-ups and pages
  • Test for mobile consistency

Conclusion:

Cross browser testing tools are necessary to access the functionality of web and mobile applications on various browsers. It is used to find and fix the flaws
in the browsers. Therefore to help you with this process, we have listed top 10 testing tools that you can use for your web and mobile browser testing. At Andolasoft, we provide the high quality
web and mobile application development services over the globe. If you want to develop your web or mobile application then
contact us, our dedicated developers will deliver you the
highest quality service with cost-effective price.

Ruby On Rails Integration Testing With Minitest And Capybara

Hi Guys! I am back again with one more article about ruby on rails.

I hope this is the right time to share one of my technical stuffs on ruby on rails after sharing PHP and Mobile stuffs.

Minitest And Capybara: Integration Testing Demystified

In this article, I am going to share my own experience and ideas of ruby on rails integration testing using Minitest and Capybara and tell you the process how it serves as one of the most preferred alternative for controller test.

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A lot of you must have heard about Capybara but still for those who are new to this –

Capybara:

Capybara is an acceptance test framework used for web applications and supports developers in integration testing of Ruby on Rails applications with Minitest.

So, let’s get into the details about Capybara, Minitest and Integration Testing

Minitest:

Minitest is the default and a complete testing suite for Ruby application, which supports ancillary test-driven development (TDD), behavior-driven development (BDD), mocking, and benchmarking for fast, clean and reliable test results.

Whereas, Capybara is the acceptance test framework for web applications and frequently used for end-to-end testing in Rails Applications.

Rails developer can suggest user on web page and Capybara provides API to interact with web page.

Integration Testing: 

Integration Testing are used to test the most important workflows of applications and test different fragments of application together while unit testing inspects the individual part of the application work.

Before sharing the real process how to use Capybara with Minitest for integration testing of your Ruby on Rails applications, let me tell you the prerequisites of this testing process.

Ruby version 2.3.3, Rails version 5.0.0.1,
Minitest version 5.10.1, and Capybara version 2.11.1 are required for the smooth operation and you can use gem install rails to get started.

Setup

You can set up a new Rails application.

rails new integration-testing-minitest

We’ll need to add Capybara to our – Gemfile

in the group test.

[code language=”php”]# Gemfile

group :test do
gem ‘minitest-rails-capybara’
end
[/code]

Also need to load Capybara in order to use it in our tests.

[code language=”php”]
# test/test_helper.rb

ENV[‘RAILS_ENV’] ||= ‘test’
requireFile.expand_path(‘../../config/environment’, __FILE__)
require ‘rails/test_help’
require "minitest/rails/capybara"

[/code]

Now, that you have everything set up, let’s see the integration tests with an example application.

Running the scaffold generator to create posts.

[code language=”php”]
rails generate scaffold Post title:string body:text
[/code]

Next we need to migrate the database.

[code language=”php”]
rake db:migrate
== 20161214213527 CreatePosts: migrating ======================================
— create_table(:posts)
-> 0.0020s
== 20161214213527 CreatePosts: migrated (0.0024s) =============================
rake
# Running:
…….
[/code]

You can also issue

[code language=”php”]rails server[/code]

at the command line and navigate to http://localhost:3000/posts to check the result.

Integration Tests

 Let’s create our first integration test.

[code language=”php”]
# test/fixtures/posts.yml

one:
title: Post Title One
body: Post body one.

two:
title: Post Title Two
body: Post body two.
[/code]

Here’s our first integration test.

[code language=”php”]
# test/integration/post_flow_test.rb

require ‘test_helper’

classPostFlowTest> Capybara::Rails::TestCase
def setup
@one = posts :one
@two = posts :two
end

test ‘post index’ do
visitposts_path

assertpage.has_content?(@one.title)
assertpage.has_content?(@two.title)
end
end
[/code]

All you need to do here is – to run all your tests again to make sure they all pass

[code language=”php”]
rake
# Running:
……..
Finished in 0.515325s, 15.5242 runs/s, 21.3458 assertions/s.

8 runs, 11 assertions, 0 failures, 0 errors, 0 skips
[/code]

Now, let’s move on to something a bit more complicated, and test if you can write a new post and submit it. Place it below other test in your integration test for posts.

[code language=”php”]
# test/integration/post_flow_test.rb

test ‘writing a new post’ do
visitposts_path

click_on ‘New Post’

fill_in ‘Title’, with: ‘Test Title’
fill_in ‘Body’,  with: ‘Test Body’

click_on ‘Create Post’

assert_current_pathpost_path(Post.last)
assertpage.has_content?(‘Test Title’)
assertpage.has_content?(‘Test Body’)
end
end
[/code]

Run the tests again to make sure everything passes.

[code language=”php”]
rake

# Running:

………

Finished in 0.551475s, 16.3199 runs/s, 23.5731 assertions/s.

9 runs, 13 assertions, 0 failures, 0 errors, 0 skips
[/code]

Now, we have one last feature to add, the email alert to an admin email once a post has been submitted. Let’s start by adding a new test for writing a new post and checking if an admin notice email was sent.

[code language=”php”]
# test/integration/post_flow_test.rb

require ‘test_helper’

classPostFlowTest> Capybara::Rails::TestCase
includeActiveJob::TestHelper

def setup
@one = posts :one
@two = posts :two
end

test ‘post index’ do
visitposts_path

assertpage.has_content?(@one.title)
assertpage.has_content?(@two.title)
end

test ‘writing a new post’ do
write_new_post

latest_post = Post.last

assert_current_pathpost_path(latest_post)
assertpage.has_content?(‘Test Title’)
assertpage.has_content?(‘Test Body’)
end

test ‘writing a new post’ do
write_new_post

latest_post = Post.last

assert_current_pathpost_path(latest_post)
assertpage.has_content?(‘Test Title’)
assertpage.has_content?(‘Test Body’)
end

test ‘writing a new post sends admin notice’ do
perform_enqueued_jobs do
write_new_post

last_post = Post.last
mail      = ActionMailer::Base.deliveries.last

assert_equal ‘admin@example.com’, mail[‘to’].to_s
assert_equal ‘New post added’, mail.subject
end
end

private

defwrite_new_post
visitposts_path

click_on ‘New Post’

fill_in ‘Title’, with: ‘Test Title’
fill_in ‘Body’,  with: ‘Test Body’

click_on ‘Create Post’
end
end
[/code]

Let’s create the mailer first:

[code language=”php”]
rails generate mailer PostMailer
[/code]

This should set up the mailer – Time to add our admin notice email to it:

[code language=”php”]
# app/mailers/post_mailer.rb

classPostMailer> ApplicationMailer
defadmin_notice(post)
@post = post
mail to: ‘admin@example.com’, subject: ‘New post added’
end
end
[/code]

We also need the corresponding views:

[code language=”php”]
%# app/views/post_mailer/admin_notice.html.erb %>

A new post has been added! Here’s the post:

<%= @post.title %>
<%= simple_format @post.body %>

<%# app/views/post_mailer/admin_notice.text.erb %>

A new post has been added! Here’s the post:

Title: <%= @post.title %>
<%= @post.body %>
[/code]

We’ll skip the tests for this mailer to keep this tutorial from getting too long. All you have to do now is call the mailer from the controller after a post has been created.

[code language=”php”]
# app/controllers/posts_controller.rb


# POST /posts
# POST /posts.json
def create
@post = Post.new(post_params)

respond_to do |format|
if @post.save
PostMailer.admin_notice(@post).deliver_later

format.html { redirect_to @post, notice: ‘Post was successfully created.’ }
format.json{ render :show, status: :created, location: @post }
else
format.html { render :new }
format.json{ renderjson: @post.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity }
end
end
end

[/code]

We added only one line there to call the mailer. Now, let’s run the tests again and see if they pass.

[code language=”php”]
rake

# Running:

……….

Finished in 0.975611s, 10.2500 runs/s, 15.3750 assertions/s.

10 runs, 15 assertions, 0 failures, 0 errors, 0 skips
[/code]

All the tests should pass, and now you have an application that is integration-tested end-to-end with Minitest and Capybara.

Coming To An End of The Lesson

I’ve worked with the team at Andolasoft on multiple websites. They are professional, responsive, & easy to work with. I’ve had great experiences & would recommend their services to anyone.

Ruthie Miller, Sr. Mktg. Specialist

Salesforce, Houston, Texas

LEARN MORE

I am sure this article will give you a clear idea about ruby on rails application integration testing using Minitest and Capybara. Share your thoughts with comments if I have missed anything or if you want to know more.