"modified the function test_utils/set_preference to accommodate user_id."
It will help setting preferences in case user_id is other than 1(depending on the user which has been logged in).
How would that ever happen? When running the tests, we initialise a new settings database, so we're guaranteed that the user ID will be 1. If it isn't, something is wrong.
This is true for pgAdmin but not for PEM.
Currently - feature tests are running as the desktop (runtime) mode.
Tomorrow - if we want to enable the feature tests for the server mode, then - this approach could be useful.
The tests can run in either mode.
No - currently it is running in the runtime mode only. :-)
We have some tests that *only* run in server mode, such as the password change/recovery tests.
Not the feature tests (only very few API test cases are for the server mode).
Most of the test cases will run in server mode (though, yes the feature tests are excluded) - in fact we run 378 Python API tests in that mode against PG10; more with EPAS. However, my point stands; we don't need this patch in pgAdmin to run the tests in server mode. If PEM needs it, then it can go in PEM. We do not add code to pgAdmin unless it benefits pgAdmin.
I am not saying whether this is really required for pgAdmin, or not.
I am only advocating in what situation it may required.