Testing keyboard input with java.awt.Robot

Question

I have a test that exercises a custom Swing component using java.awt.Robot. I'd like to run the test in our build server, but the build servers run on locked windows machines, and Robot.keyPress(char) doesn't work with the screen locked. The keystrokes I'm sending are sometimes things like down arrow and backspace, so sending them directly to the document isn't helpful.

Currently I'm just using junit's Assume to skip the tests if keyboard entry doesn't work on the first try, but I'd like to leave these test enabled. I would assume someone out there is running these kinds of tests against a Swing gui. Any ideas?

Answer 1

A stab in the dark: perhaps a VM (like VirtualBox) could be running in the background, but would for all intents and purposes be "awake and unlocked" as far as the robot knows. The virtual box would run your unit tests.

Answer 2

have you tried using the headless mode of java ? I guess java.awt.Robot won't work in this case, since it specifically depends upon awt being loaded. in such a case, one should better rely upon gui testing frameworks, like the cool (and running in headless mode) fest-swing.