What is application testing? What are the different categories of the applications?

Application testing as the term itself suggests is all about the testing of a software application. Application testing is carried out on the basis of the scenarios developed by the analysis team.

ABOUT APPLICATION TESTING
- Application testing usually checks out all the aspects of a software application but, mainly focuses upon the features, functionalities and limitations of the software application.
- The software application needs to pass al the tests listed in the scenarios to be ready for the release.
- This is needed because the scenarios form a part of requirements documentation and are considered to means for measuring success.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN APPLICATION & OTHER TYPES OF TESTING
- Application testing is a bit different from the other types of testings.
- Application testing is controlled with the help of the scripts whose basic purpose is to keep the software system running according to some parameters and checks the outcomes.
- On the other hand other types of testing are usually programmed like unit testing and internal testing.
- In the past years, the scripts used to run the application were prepared manually i.e., they were hand written.
- But today many methodologies have been developed to automate the application testing.

PROBLEM FACED BY APPLICATION TESTING
- Most of the applications today make use of the graphical user interface (GUI), which though being a smart way to establish a relation between the user and computer; poses a problem for the application testing.
- These GUI systems comprise of event loops which involve mouse and keyboard signals etc.
- These signals have screen coordinates associated with them.
- These screen coordinates help in relating the event to the concerned object.
- In some rare cases the object is located at some different coordinates.
- This leads to the change of the coordinates in the loop of the events.

DIFFERENT CATEGORIES OF APPLICATIONS
- A computer performs a particular task ordered by the user by means of the software applications.
- Different applications have different purposes.
- Therefore based on the purpose they are classified into the following criteria: (a) General purpose software applications: As the name suggests these software applications are used for a more general purpose i.e., purposes that are required to be fulfilled by almost everyone. This category includes application softwares like web browsers, word processors, spreadsheets etc.

(b) Specific purpose software applications:
These application software is used to carry out more specific tasks like trunk scheduling, accounting, editing photos and so on.

KINDS OF APPLICATION SOFTWARE
There are many kinds of application software available today like:
- Free application software
- Business application software
- Application softwares for children
- Communication application software
- Computer aided manufacturing application software
- Data management application software
- Desktop publishing application software
- Desktop widgets
- Editing application software
- Educational applications software
- Entertainment application software
- Genealogy application software
- Government application software
- Graphics application software
- Industrial application software
- Knowledge representation application software
- Language application software
- Legal application software
- Library and information science application software
- Multimedia application software
- Music application software
- Personal information manager application software
- Computer programming and testing tools
- Religious software applications

ADVANTAGES OF APPLICATIONS
- No software system is complete without applications.
- Applications add features and functionality to a software system.
- Furthermore managing a software system with a number of small particular applications is easier to mange rather than one big complex software program.
- They reduce our burden to a great extent.
- Without the applications we would have to perform all the tasks manually which will require a great deal of our precious time and efforts.