XML Stylesheet Templates
XML files in their natural format are not very readable, because
tags and delimiters hide the real data. There are also no colors
to emphasize important data, font is the same for complete file,
...
Since conversion of XML to something more human readable is a
common task, a special standard is defined by W3C, called XSL Transformations. These
transformations are described in XML files, and define how to
convert XML file to something else, for example XHTML.
XSLTs are used by testIDEA to display test
reports, which are stored in XML format, in web browser. You can
use built-in XSLTs, or write your own.
When built-in template is used, it is automatically copied to the
same folder as XML test report.
CSS
Sometimes we want to show test report in the same form, but with
other colors. For example, printing on black-and-white printer may
require different colors than viewing on a color monitor. To avoid
creation of new XSLT file for each color set, the built-in XSLTs
use external CSS
(Cascading Style Sheets) files. This is also configurable in dialog
for saving test reports.
Custom XSLT and CSS files
When we want to customize the test reports, we can take the
built-in XSLT and CSS file and modify them according to our
needs.
Embedding XSLT and CSS files
To get complete test report in one XML file, instead of in three files (XML
for data, XSLT for transformation, CSS for colors and other HTML style properties),
it is possible to configure testIDEA to embed XSLT and CSS files into
XML report file (Test | Configure Test Report ...). This creates larger file, and makes sense if there are not many
report files. Otherwise, if XSLT and CSS are reused by several XML report
files, it is better to keep them as standalone files.
Browser compatibility
Not all browsers may show standalone and embedded versions of report properly.
While Internet Explorer has problems with single file (XSLT and CSS embedded),
Chrome does not show report when XSLT is stored to separate file. Firefox
properly shows report in both cases.