DLNA solves HTML5 conformance testing challenge
April 20, 2016
The Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) has designed and deployed an HTML5 conformance suite for embedded devices based on the W3C’s “Test the Web Forward” project.
As part of DLNA’s Certification Programme, the new tool suite provides a comprehensive test solution for embedded browsers. These browsers could not previously use the W3C Test Suite, which was focused on desktop browsers or used in development environments.
Because TVs, set top boxes, and mobile devices are the products most likely to be certified to the DLNA HTML5 Guidelines, DLNA has made changes to allow use of the test suite on these device types. A number of issues have, until now, made it difficult or impossible to use the test suite on TV and mobile devices:
– TVs typically do not have any form of mouse or touch input that the W3C version of the test suite depends on.
– Mobile devices typically have smaller screens and cannot show all the content of the test suite, making it harder to use.
– Typical tabbed or multi-window browsing is not supported.
– These types of devices usually have no local storage for test results.
To remedy these issues, DLNA has added several features to the testing suite. The first is a simplified tool that uses adaptive web design to allow the UI to scale to different types of devices. This UI also features the ability to use only the keyboard, specifically only the direction keys and enter/select, so it is well suited to being used from a typical TV remote. The other main feature added by DLNA is the ability to push results to a server as the tests are being performed. This removes the need to have local storage in the device being tested and centralizes the collection of test results.