First of all, thanks for NCrunch, love it!

I find my self reaching for the NCrunch Tests window as if it was the Solution Explorer, trying to navigate to, or create, classes.

Maybe a stange feature for a test runner, but what do you think of adding a few simple project maintenance features to the tests window?

In the spirit of TDD this would be used for, and encourage, a test first approach to everything.

Example

"New class" (or "module" if that is a better name)
Would ask for a name
Create a class with that name in the appropriate namespace
Create a matching test class using a template from a configured test framework
Open the test class and leave you with the cursor in a position to start calling a method on a freshly create instance of the class.

It's not really that much of a use case. Rather a combination a common mistake on my part, and a long term vision of an entierely different product.

The mistake is simply that because the test window is organized around projects it kind of looks like an explorer. Combined with the fact that I tend to have the test window open all the time I have a tendency to want to interact with the project thourgh this window.

The long term thing is an idea I have of en IDE/language where tests define module interfaces. A language and environment where there simply is no distinction between tests and types (as in type theory, not as in classes). In such an environment the project explorer and test widndow would probably be the same thing (allthougha I envision a search based navigation for this system)
Dreams are free as you say ;-)


Now the use case I have in mind for NCrunch was not to create tests for existing code, but to create tests for code yet to be written, but both needs could probably be served by the same design.

A template based "new fixture" would do some of what I had in mind the important detail to achieve the effect I'm after is to create the class to be tested from the test though. Visual Studio can do a "Generate class for '...'" fix for unkonwn symbols. If I could activate that fix from the test code and have the class end up in the correct project and namespace I would be happy. But tests are usually not in the same project as the tested code, and I guess it's not uncommon to have different namespaces too. So by default the effect of the generate class fix does not work that well.


On the imprtance scale this is really a "nice to have" so I'm sure you have quite a few more important things on your TODO-list than this. Just wanted the idea out there to see if you, or others, agree that it would be a nice feature.