Requality: general information

What is Requality

Requality is a tool to manage requirements primarily to software. It allows:

• defininig set of system requirements, including requirements based on analysis of existed documents;
• structuring requirements: combining, supplying it with additional information;
• analyzing set of requirements: tracing completeness of requirements test coverage with tests, tracing compliance of the test results with requirements and etc.; generating the appropriate reports.

Multiuser revision control for documents and requirements is supported. You can use any revision control system, e.g. Subversion or Git.

The tool is implemented as an Eclipse plugin. It could be used in IDE based on this platform, and independently.

About team

Requality home page

UniTESK Lab, Institute for System Programming of RAS

System requirements

1. Windows or Linux. x86 and x86-64 architectures supported. If using x86 architecture all tools listed below should be x86 too. If using x86-64 all used tools could be x86 all or x86-64 all. Currently there is no supported browser engine for Windows x86-64, that could be integrated to Eclipse, so you should use x86 versions for Windows x86-64.
2. Sun/Oracle Java SE 6.0.
3. Eclipse Platform 3.5, (3.7.1 recommended). You can use Platform Runtime Binary (about 50MB) or any other package based on it.
4. XULRunner 1.9.2.19 (for Eclipse lower 4.4) Eclipse plugin: update site. For Eclipse 4.4 (Luna) and higher you should use XULRunner 10.0.4esr. For Linux and Eclipse lower 4.4 you can use WebKit instead of XULRunner.
5. CVS, Subversive, EGit (recommended) or any other Eclipse Team Provider — it depends on your version control system.

Preparation to Requality installation

Eclipse installation

To install Eclipse unpack the archive to any convenient place. This creates an 'eclipse' sub-directory.

If using Java 7, to turn on backward compatibility mode add following string to the end of 'eclipse.ini' file

-Djava.util.Arrays.useLegacyMergeSort=true

Following instructions expects you to know how to install Eclipse plugins from an update site.

Browser integration to Eclipse

Requality requires browser engine to be integrated to Eclipse. Mozilla Foundation XULRunner and WebKit are supported. Depending on the operating system it is recommended to use a different browser engine.

NOTE! After Requality installation you can check if browser engine has been installed successfully. See instructions here.

• For Windows it's recommended to use Mozilla XULRunner.

  NOTE! To use XULRunner on Windows x86_64 install Visual C++ 2010 runtime.

  1. For Eclipse lower 4.4. it's recommended to install Eclipse plugin which contains XULRunner using update-site specified in System requirements.

     If it is unsuitable for some reason there is another way to install XULRunner:

     • Download XULRunner archive from page (see System requirements).
       
     • Unpack the archive to a convenient place. After that if using Windows you should register XULRunner in the system. Use following command:
       'xulrunner.exe --register-global'

       In Windows 7 this command should be run by administrator.

     • You shouldn’t install duplicate XULRunner if Mozilla Firefox has already been installed. Copy 'xulrunner.exe' to Firefox folder and run above-mentioned command.

       Or you just can add following information to the system registry (check the correctness of paths and versions!):

       Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
       [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\mozilla.org]
       [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\mozilla.org\GRE]
       [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\mozilla.org\GRE\1.9.2.19]
       "Version"="1.9.2.19"
       "GreHome"="C:\\Program Files\\Mozilla Firefox"
       "xulrunner"="true"
       "abi"="x86-msvc"
       "javaxpcom"="1"
       [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\mozilla.org\Mozilla]
       "CurrentVersion"="1.9.2.19"

  2. For Eclipse 4.4 and higher it's recommended to download XULRunner here, unpack this archive to an appropriate directory on the disc and add following string to eclipse.ini:

     -Dorg.eclipse.swt.browser.XULRunnerPath=<path to XULRunner>

     If your unpacked XULRunner is located in directory C:\xulrunner, this string should look like:

     -Dorg.eclipse.swt.browser.XULRunnerPath=C:\xulrunner

• For Linux it's recommended to use WebKit. Also you can use XULRunner.

  1. To install WebKit run following command in command line:

     sudo apt-get install libwebkitgtk-1.0-0

  2. If you want to use XULRunner download XULRunner 10.0.4esr archive here, unpack it to an appropriate directory on the disc and add following string to eclipse.ini:

     -Dorg.eclipse.swt.browser.XULRunnerPath=<path to XULRunner>

     If your unpacked XULRunner is located in directory C:\xulrunner, this string should look like:

     -Dorg.eclipse.swt.browser.XULRunnerPath=C:\xulrunner

Installation of plugin for interaction with control version system

Control version system provides collective work with requirements. Check if there are plugins to interact with chosen version control system (CVS, Subversion, git and others) in Eclipse. If needed, appropriate plugin could be installed from Eclipse repository. In the case of Subversion it is recommended to use Subversive plugin (Subclipse plugin is not recommended).

Requality installation

There are 2 ways how to install the tool:

Installing Requality from update site

We recommend installing from the update site because it makes version update easier. It uses Eclipse Update Manager – usual Eclipse Platform procedure to install plugins from the update site. Requality update site: http://forge.ispras.ru/repo/requality/site/

Installing Requality to dropins directory

Eclipse Platform supports another way of extention by adding plugin to eclipse/dropins directory.

We take a closer look of these two ways below:

1. Installing Requality by Eclipse Update Manager (from update site)

• Install

  To install Requality by Eclipse Update Manager open Main menu and choose 'Install New Software...'
  
  
  

  In opened window insert Requality update site address.
  
  
  

  Name: Requality
  Location: http://forge.ispras.ru/repo/requality/site/
  
  
  

  Then choose Requality plugin from the available plugins list and follow install plugin Wizard.

  While installing there will appear Security Warning about unsigned content. Push 'OK'.
  
  
  

  Restart Eclipse after installation.
  

• Delete

  To delete the plugin choose in menu Help -> About Eclipse. In the opened window ('About Eclipse') push button 'Installation Details', in 'Eclipse Installation Details' window select required plugin - Requality, push 'Uninstall' and continue deletion with the help of plugin delete wizard.

  Restart Eclipse after deletion.
  

• Update

  To update Requality that was installed by Eclipse Update Manager choose in main menu Help -> Check for Updates. Wait until updates search finish. In thу opened window ('Available Updates') select Requality plugin and continue installation with the help of plugin update wizard.
  
  
  

  There are 2 reasons why the plugin can not be in the list: the plugin is not installed or there are no updates.

  Restart Eclipse after installation.
  

2. Installing to dropins directory

• Install

  To install Requality unpack the archive to eclipse/dropins directory.

• Delete

  You should do following steps to delete Requality that is installed in eclipse/dropins directory:

  1. Run Eclipse with Requality. Set any not-Requality perspective. Close Eclipse.
  2. Delete Requality-directory from eclipse/dropins.
  3. Run Eclipse to update data about installed plugins. Close Eclipse.
     

• Update

  Delete previous Requality version, then install new version as it described in 'Install' and 'Delete' sections.

After installation

After Requality installation it's recommended to check if browser has been successfully installed to Eclipse.

In Eclipse main menu select 'Window -> Preferences'. In 'Preferences' select menu 'Requality'. On the right you can see what browser engines are integrated with 'Eclipse' and which one is currently in use.

To change active browser engine click on 'Browser Engine' field and select required one in the drop-down list. Then save changes by 'Apply' button. After that Eclipse should be restarted for the changes to take effect.

If required browser engine has 'not available' status in the drop-down list, this means that either you have not installed it yet or the installation has been failed. You can activate only browser engine with status 'available'.

Requality usecases

1. Creating a project with base of all requirements.
2. Importing documents to the project.
3. Marking up the document by selecting system requirements in the text. Could be done manually or by Document Processor.
4. Adding test purposes to selected requirements.
5. Auto-generation of a requirements and test purposes report. There are possibility to create your own report templates.

Note! Additional plugins could be used to add some other functions.

Requality perspective

To open Requality perspective choose in main menu 'Window' -> 'Open Perspective' - >'Other...'. In the opened window choose Requality (see the picture) and push 'OK'.

If you create 'Requality' project 'Requality'-perspective opens itself.

Following views are opened in 'Requality' perspective by default:

1. Requality Explorer – contains a documents tree, tree of requirements, test purposes and comments, reports tree. 'Requality Explorer' is similar to 'Package explorer', but you can open only 'Requality' projects in it. 'Requality' project contains following components:

   • Documents folder – contains all imported project documents.
   • Requirements root node – contains all project requirements and is a requirement itself. It’s root position in requirements hierarchy and 'Requirements' identifier cannot be changed (but name can). Also this node contains test purposes and comments.
   • Reports folder – contains reports
   
   
   
   

2. Requality Markup Editor – documents editor (empty gray area on the picture below). Here you can open all imported documents and mark requirements locations. Also reports are opened here.

3. Properties – view to edit properties of requirements, test purposes, reports, documents. Properties view has some tabs. The number and contents of tabs depends on type of component. Note that you can open several Properties views at the same time. To do this select in the view menu 'New Properties View' item. To fix properties of some special component in Properties view, select 'Pin to Selection' in the view menu or push an appropriate button in the view. Now the content of the view is not being changed even if you switch between other components.

4. Outline – shows a list of locations marked in current document. Current document is a document that is opened in 'Markup Editor' and is in a focus. At other times this view is empty.

5. UniEditor – an editor to handle and edit requirements, test purposes and comments. Is opened at the same place as 'Requality Markup Editor'.