Behat optimisations, addresses #765.

[marxjohnson]

This does a bunch of optimisations for the longest-running behat features. See the commit messages for details of what I've done. Further optimisations are possible, but I don't have time to work on this any further at the moment. Hopefully the groundwork of adding the behat_theme_boost_union and behat_theme_boost_union_generator classes will make it easy for others to make further improvements.

In my first run of these changes the tests completed in 2.5 hours, vs the 3.5-4 hours I was getting previously.,

[x] link your issue in the PR title, using the keyword 'resolves #ISSUE-NUMBER', e.g. 'Feature: Provide the ultimate user experience, resolves #42'
[x provide any further information that is relevant for peer review and not yet mentioned in the linked issue as a comment in the PR
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[x] submit your PR in draft status to run the automated checks and review the results
[x] in case any checks fail solve the mentioned errors by pushing the corrected code to your PR-branch
[x] if all checks pass (or if you are unable to resolve the failing steps without any help of the review team), mark the PR as 'ready for review'

[abias]

Hi @marxjohnson ,

Review

Following https://github.com/moodle-an-hochschulen/moodle-plugin-maintaining/wiki/Check-list-for-peer-reviewing-patches-and-pull-requests

Documentation

• [Y] Commit Message understandable and issue referenced (via resolves keyword)
• [Y] Patch author correct
• [Y] CHANGES.md appended
• [-] README.md appended
• [-] Credits appended
• [Y] Appropriate Comment quantity
• [Y] Successful Moodle PHPDoc check

version.php

• [Y] Checked if $plugin->version increment necessary (and increment done if necessary)
• [Y] $plugin->release untouched

lib.php

• [-] Only necessary functions

Languages

• [Y] Only english strings
• [-] Necessary magic strings added (e.g. capabilities)

Automated tests

• [-] New functionality covered
• [Y] No failing steps or scenarios

Mustache templates

• [-] Example context exists

CSS and styles.css

• [-] Bootstrap styles used if possible

Duplicated code

• [-] Duplicated code is marked properly

Github action

• [Y] All green

Commit history and scope

• [N] Already single commit
• [Y] Focus on single purpose
• [Y] No surplus files

Additional aspects for Boost Union

• [-] No usage of $theme->settings
• [-] Usage of isset() checks when processing plugin settings in renderer / output code
• [-] Usage of admin_setting_configselect instead of admin_setting_configcheckbox
• [-] Modified mustache templates properly marked and .upstream template in place

Review result

Many thanks for this PR, these improvements are highly appreciated!
Your changes appear very well crafted to me and I have just pushed a small "Review changes" commit with minor changes to your branch.

Thank you especially for re-using the existing but up to now unused smartmenu_item::get_display_options() function. I have now fixed this function to only serve the purpose which you have introduced.

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I will wait until the tests are green again and will then merge the PR into main and will also have a look at the backports into the stable branches.

If I may ask you one more thing:
Could you please create a follow-up issue here on Github with the things which you would have loved to optimize as well when you ran out of time in the end? That way, the tasks would be documented for anyone to pick it up as soon as time and budget allows.

Many thanks again,
Alex