electron-playwright-helpers
Advanced tools
Helper functions for Electron end-to-end testing using Playwright
Helper functions to make it easier to use Playwright for end-to-end testing with
Electron. Parse packaged Electron projects so you can run tests on them. Click Electron menu items, send IPC messages, get menu structures, stub dialog.showOpenDialog() results, etc.
npm i -D electron-playwright-helpers
For a full example of how to use this library, see the electron-playwright-example project. But here's a quick example:
Javascript:
const eph = require('electron-playwright-helpers')
// - or cherry pick -
const { findLatestBuild, parseElectronApp, clickMenuItemById } = require('electron-playwright-helpers')
let electronApp: ElectronApplication
test.beforeAll(async () => {
// find the latest build in the out directory
const latestBuild = findLatestBuild()
// parse the packaged Electron app and find paths and other info
const appInfo = parseElectronApp(latestBuild)
electronApp = await electron.launch({
args: [appInfo.main], // main file from package.json
executablePath: appInfo.executable // path to the Electron executable
})
})
test.afterAll(async () => {
await electronApp.close()
})
test('open a file', async () => {
// stub electron dialog so dialog.showOpenDialog()
// will return a file path without opening a dialog
await eph.stubDialog(electronApp, 'showOpenDialog', { filePaths: ['/path/to/file'] })
// call the click method of menu item in the Electron app's application menu
await eph.clickMenuItemById(electronApp, 'open-file')
// get the result of an ipcMain.handle() function
const result = await eph.ipcMainInvokeHandler(electronApp, 'get-open-file-path')
// result should be the file path
expect(result).toBe('/path/to/file')
})
Typescript:
import * as eph from 'electron-playwright-helpers'
// - or cherry pick -
import { electronWaitForFunction, ipcMainCallFirstListener, clickMenuItemById } from 'electron-playwright-helpers'
// then same as Javascript above
Yes, please! Pull requests are always welcome. Feel free to add or suggest new features, fix bugs, etc.
Please use Conventional Commit messages for your commits. This project uses semantic-release to automatically publish new versions to NPM. The commit messages are used to determine the version number and changelog. We're also using Prettier as our code format and ESlint to enforce formatting, so please make sure your code is formatted before submitting a PR.
stringParses the out directory to find the latest build of your Electron project.
Use npm run package (or similar) to build your app prior to testing.
Assumptions: We assume that your build will be in the out directory, and that
the build directory will be named with a hyphen-delimited platform name, e.g.
out/my-app-win-x64. If your build directory is not out, you can
pass the name of the directory as the buildDirectory parameter. If your
build directory is not named with a hyphen-delimited platform name, this
function will not work. However, you can pass the build path into
parseElectronApp() directly.
ElectronAppInfoGiven a directory containing an Electron app build, or the path to the app itself (directory on Mac, executable on Windows), return a bunch of metadata, including the path to the app's executable and the path to the app's main file.
Format of the data returned is an object with the following properties:
Promise.<void>Wait for a function to evaluate to true in the main Electron process. This really should be part of the Playwright API, but it's not.
This function is to electronApp.evaluate()
as page.waitForFunction() is page.evaluate().
Promise.<void>Stub a single dialog method. This is a convenience function that calls stubMultipleDialogs
for a single method.
Playwright does not have a way to interact with Electron dialog windows, so this function allows you to substitute the dialog module's methods during your tests. By stubbing the dialog module, your Electron application will not display any dialog windows, and you can control the return value of the dialog methods. You're basically saying "when my application calls dialog.showOpenDialog, return this value instead". This allows you to test your application's behavior when the user selects a file, or cancels the dialog, etc.
Note: Each dialog method can only be stubbed with one value at a time, so you will want to call
stubDialog before each time that you expect your application to call the dialog method.
Promise.<void>Stub methods of the Electron dialog module.
Playwright does not have a way to interact with Electron dialog windows, so this function allows you to mock the dialog module's methods during your tests. By mocking the dialog module, your Electron application will not display any dialog windows, and you can control the return value of the dialog methods. You're basically saying "when my application calls dialog.showOpenDialog, return this value instead". This allows you to test your application's behavior when the user selects a file, or cancels the dialog, etc.
Promise.<void>Stub all dialog methods. This is a convenience function that calls stubMultipleDialogs
for all dialog methods. This is useful if you want to ensure that dialogs are not displayed
during your tests. However, you may want to use stubDialog or stubMultipleDialogs to
control the return value of specific dialog methods (e.g. showOpenDialog) during your tests.
Promise.<boolean>Emit an ipcMain message from the main process. This will trigger all ipcMain listeners for the message.
This does not transfer data between main and renderer processes. It simply emits an event in the main process.
Promise.<unknown>Call the first listener for a given ipcMain message in the main process and return its result.
NOTE: ipcMain listeners usually don't return a value, but we're using this to retrieve test data from the main process.
Generally, it's probably better to use ipcMainInvokeHandler() instead.
Promise.<unknown>Get the return value of an ipcMain.handle() function
Promise.<unknown>Send an ipcRenderer.send() (to main process) from a given window.
Note: nodeIntegration must be true and contextIsolation must be false in the webPreferences for this BrowserWindow.
Promise.<unknown>Send an ipcRenderer.invoke() from a given window.
Note: nodeIntegration must be true and contextIsolation must be false in the webPreferences for this window
Promise.<unknown>Call just the first listener for a given ipcRenderer channel in a given window. UNLIKE MOST Electron ipcRenderer listeners, this function SHOULD return a value.
This function does not send data between main and renderer processes. It simply retrieves data from the renderer process.
Note: nodeIntegration must be true for this BrowserWindow.
Promise.<boolean>Emit an IPC message to a given window. This will trigger all ipcRenderer listeners for the message.
This does not transfer data between main and renderer processes. It simply emits an event in the renderer process.
Note: nodeIntegration must be true for this window
Promise.<void>Execute the .click() method on the element with the given id.
NOTE: All menu testing functions will only work with items in the
application menu.
Promise.<void>Click the first matching menu item by any of its properties. This is
useful for menu items that don't have an id. HOWEVER, this is not as fast
or reliable as using clickMenuItemById() if the menu item has an id.
NOTE: All menu testing functions will only work with items in the application menu.
Promise.<string>Get a given attribute the MenuItem with the given id.
Promise.<MenuItemPartial>Get information about the MenuItem with the given id
Promise.<Array.<MenuItemPartial>>Get the current state of the application menu. Contains only primitive values and submenus.. Very similar to menu construction template structure in Electron.
Promise.<MenuItemPartial>Find a MenuItem by any of its properties
Promise.<void>Wait for a MenuItem to exist
Promise.<void>Wait for a MenuItem to have a specific attribute value. For example, wait for a MenuItem to be enabled... or be visible.. etc
Format of the data returned from parseElectronApp()
stringParses the out directory to find the latest build of your Electron project.
Use npm run package (or similar) to build your app prior to testing.
Assumptions: We assume that your build will be in the out directory, and that
the build directory will be named with a hyphen-delimited platform name, e.g.
out/my-app-win-x64. If your build directory is not out, you can
pass the name of the directory as the buildDirectory parameter. If your
build directory is not named with a hyphen-delimited platform name, this
function will not work. However, you can pass the build path into
parseElectronApp() directly.
Kind: global function
Returns: string -
| Param | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| buildDirectory | string | "out" | optional - the directory to search for the latest build (path/name relative to package root or full path starting with /). Defaults to |
ElectronAppInfoGiven a directory containing an Electron app build, or the path to the app itself (directory on Mac, executable on Windows), return a bunch of metadata, including the path to the app's executable and the path to the app's main file.
Format of the data returned is an object with the following properties:
Kind: global function
Returns: ElectronAppInfo -
metadata about the app
| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| buildDir | string | absolute path to the build directory or the app itself |
Promise.<void>Wait for a function to evaluate to true in the main Electron process. This really should be part of the Playwright API, but it's not.
This function is to electronApp.evaluate()
as page.waitForFunction() is page.evaluate().
Kind: global function
Fulfil: void Resolves when the function returns true
| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| electronApp | ElectronApplication | the Playwright ElectronApplication |
| fn | function | the function to evaluate in the main process - must return a boolean |
| arg | Any | optional - an argument to pass to the function |
Format of the data returned from parseElectronApp()
Kind: global typedef
Properties
| Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| executable | string | path to the Electron executable |
| main | string | path to the main (JS) file |
| name | string | name of the your application |
| resourcesDir | string | path to the resources directory |
| asar | boolean | whether the app is packaged as an asar archive |
| platform | string | 'darwin', 'linux', or 'win32' |
| arch | string | 'x64', 'x32', or 'arm64' |
| packageJson | PackageJson | the |
Promise.<void>Stub a single dialog method. This is a convenience function that calls stubMultipleDialogs
for a single method.
Playwright does not have a way to interact with Electron dialog windows, so this function allows you to substitute the dialog module's methods during your tests. By stubbing the dialog module, your Electron application will not display any dialog windows, and you can control the return value of the dialog methods. You're basically saying "when my application calls dialog.showOpenDialog, return this value instead". This allows you to test your application's behavior when the user selects a file, or cancels the dialog, etc.
Note: Each dialog method can only be stubbed with one value at a time, so you will want to call
stubDialog before each time that you expect your application to call the dialog method.
Kind: global function
Returns: Promise.<void> -
A promise that resolves when the mock is applied.
void - A promise that resolves when the mock is applied.| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| app | ElectronApplication | The Playwright ElectronApplication instance. |
| method | String | The dialog method to mock. |
| value | ReturnType.<Electron.Dialog> | The value that your application will receive when calling this dialog method. See the Electron docs for the return value of each method. |
Example
await stubDialog(app, 'showOpenDialog', {
filePaths: ['/path/to/file'],
canceled: false,
})
await clickMenuItemById(app, 'open-file')
// when time your application calls dialog.showOpenDialog,
// it will return the value you specified
Promise.<void>Stub methods of the Electron dialog module.
Playwright does not have a way to interact with Electron dialog windows, so this function allows you to mock the dialog module's methods during your tests. By mocking the dialog module, your Electron application will not display any dialog windows, and you can control the return value of the dialog methods. You're basically saying "when my application calls dialog.showOpenDialog, return this value instead". This allows you to test your application's behavior when the user selects a file, or cancels the dialog, etc.
Kind: global function
Returns: Promise.<void> -
A promise that resolves when the mocks are applied.
void - A promise that resolves when the mocks are applied.
| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| app | ElectronApplication | The Playwright ElectronApplication instance. |
| mocks | Array.<DialogMethodStubPartial> | An array of dialog method mocks to apply. |
Example
await stubMultipleDialogs(app, [
{
method: 'showOpenDialog',
value: {
filePaths: ['/path/to/file1', '/path/to/file2'],
canceled: false,
},
},
{
method: 'showSaveDialog',
value: {
filePath: '/path/to/file',
canceled: false,
},
},
])
await clickMenuItemById(app, 'save-file')
// when your application calls dialog.showSaveDialog,
// it will return the value you specified
Promise.<void>Stub all dialog methods. This is a convenience function that calls stubMultipleDialogs
for all dialog methods. This is useful if you want to ensure that dialogs are not displayed
during your tests. However, you may want to use stubDialog or stubMultipleDialogs to
control the return value of specific dialog methods (e.g. showOpenDialog) during your tests.
Kind: global function
Returns: Promise.<void> -
A promise that resolves when the mocks are applied.
void - A promise that resolves when the mocks are applied.| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| app | ElectronApplication | The Playwright ElectronApplication instance. |
Promise.<boolean>Emit an ipcMain message from the main process. This will trigger all ipcMain listeners for the message.
This does not transfer data between main and renderer processes. It simply emits an event in the main process.
Kind: global function
Category: IPCMain
Fulfil: boolean true if there were listeners for this message
Reject: Error if there are no ipcMain listeners for the event
| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| electronApp | ElectronApplication | the ElectronApplication object from Playwright |
| message | string | the channel to call all ipcMain listeners for |
| ...args | unknown | one or more arguments to send |
Promise.<unknown>Call the first listener for a given ipcMain message in the main process and return its result.
NOTE: ipcMain listeners usually don't return a value, but we're using this to retrieve test data from the main process.
Generally, it's probably better to use ipcMainInvokeHandler() instead.
Kind: global function
Category: IPCMain
Fulfil: unknown resolves with the result of the function
Reject: Error if there are no ipcMain listeners for the event
| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| electronApp | ElectronApplication | the ElectronApplication object from Playwright |
| message | string | the channel to call the first listener for |
| ...args | unknown | one or more arguments to send |
Promise.<unknown>Get the return value of an ipcMain.handle() function
Kind: global function
Category: IPCMain
Fulfil: unknown resolves with the result of the function called in main process
| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| electronApp | ElectronApplication | the ElectronApplication object from Playwright |
| message | string | the channel to call the first listener for |
| ...args | unknown | one or more arguments to send |
Promise.<unknown>Send an ipcRenderer.send() (to main process) from a given window.
Note: nodeIntegration must be true and contextIsolation must be false in the webPreferences for this BrowserWindow.
Kind: global function
Category: IPCRenderer
Fulfil: unknown resolves with the result of ipcRenderer.send()
| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| page | Page | the Playwright Page to send the ipcRenderer.send() from |
| channel | string | the channel to send the ipcRenderer.send() to |
| ...args | unknown | one or more arguments to send to the |
Promise.<unknown>Send an ipcRenderer.invoke() from a given window.
Note: nodeIntegration must be true and contextIsolation must be false in the webPreferences for this window
Kind: global function
Category: IPCRenderer
Fulfil: unknown resolves with the result of ipcRenderer.invoke()
| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| page | Page | the Playwright Page to send the ipcRenderer.invoke() from |
| message | string | the channel to send the ipcRenderer.invoke() to |
| ...args | unknown | one or more arguments to send to the ipcRenderer.invoke() |
Promise.<unknown>Call just the first listener for a given ipcRenderer channel in a given window. UNLIKE MOST Electron ipcRenderer listeners, this function SHOULD return a value.
This function does not send data between main and renderer processes. It simply retrieves data from the renderer process.
Note: nodeIntegration must be true for this BrowserWindow.
Kind: global function
Category: IPCRenderer
Fulfil: unknown the result of the first ipcRenderer.on() listener
| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| window | Page | The Playwright Page to with the |
| message | string | The channel to call the first listener for |
| ...args | unknown | optional - One or more arguments to send to the ipcRenderer.on() listener |
Promise.<boolean>Emit an IPC message to a given window. This will trigger all ipcRenderer listeners for the message.
This does not transfer data between main and renderer processes. It simply emits an event in the renderer process.
Note: nodeIntegration must be true for this window
Kind: global function
Category: IPCRenderer
Fulfil: boolean true if the event was emitted
Reject: Error if there are no ipcRenderer listeners for the event
| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| window | Page | the Playwright Page to with the ipcRenderer.on() listener |
| message | string | the channel to call all ipcRenderer listeners for |
| ...args | unknown | optional - one or more arguments to send |
Promise.<void>Execute the .click() method on the element with the given id.
NOTE: All menu testing functions will only work with items in the
application menu.
Kind: global function
Category: Menu
Fulfil: void resolves with the result of the click() method - probably undefined
| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| electronApp | ElectronApplication | the Electron application object (from Playwright) |
| id | string | the id of the MenuItem to click |
Promise.<void>Click the first matching menu item by any of its properties. This is
useful for menu items that don't have an id. HOWEVER, this is not as fast
or reliable as using clickMenuItemById() if the menu item has an id.
NOTE: All menu testing functions will only work with items in the application menu.
Kind: global function
Category: Menu
Fulfil: void resolves with the result of the click() method - probably undefined
| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| electronApp | ElectronApplication | the Electron application object (from Playwright) |
| property | String | a property of the MenuItem to search for |
| value | String | Number | Boolean | the value of the property to search for |
Promise.<string>Get a given attribute the MenuItem with the given id.
Kind: global function
Category: Menu
Fulfil: string resolves with the attribute value
| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| electronApp | ElectronApplication | the Electron application object (from Playwright) |
| menuId | string | the id of the MenuItem to retrieve the attribute from |
| attribute | string | the attribute to retrieve |
Promise.<MenuItemPartial>Get information about the MenuItem with the given id
Kind: global function
Category: Menu
Fulfil: MenuItemPartial the MenuItem with the given id
| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| electronApp | ElectronApplication | the Electron application object (from Playwright) |
| menuId | string | the id of the MenuItem to retrieve |
Promise.<Array.<MenuItemPartial>>Get the current state of the application menu. Contains only primitive values and submenus.. Very similar to menu construction template structure in Electron.
Kind: global function
Category: Menu
Fulfil: MenuItemPartial[] an array of MenuItem-like objects
| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| electronApp | ElectronApplication | the Electron application object (from Playwright) |
Promise.<MenuItemPartial>Find a MenuItem by any of its properties
Kind: global function
Category: Menu
Fulfil: MenuItemPartial the first MenuItem with the given property and value
| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| electronApp | ElectronApplication | the Electron application object (from Playwright) |
| property | string | the property to search for |
| value | string | the value to search for |
| menuItems | MenuItemPartial | Array.<MenuItemPartial> | optional - single MenuItem or array - if not provided, will be retrieved from the application menu |
Promise.<void>Wait for a MenuItem to exist
Kind: global function
Category: Menu
Fulfil: void resolves when the MenuItem is found
| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| electronApp | ElectronApplication | the Electron application object (from Playwright) |
| id | string | the id of the MenuItem to wait for |
Promise.<void>Wait for a MenuItem to have a specific attribute value. For example, wait for a MenuItem to be enabled... or be visible.. etc
Kind: global function
Category: Menu
Fulfil: void resolves when the MenuItem with correct status is found
| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| electronApp | ElectronApplication | the Electron application object (from Playwright) |
| id | string | the id of the MenuItem to wait for |
| property | string | the property to search for |
| value | string | number | boolean | the value to search for |
FAQs
Helper functions for Electron end-to-end testing using Playwright
The npm package electron-playwright-helpers receives a total of 3,486 weekly downloads. As such, electron-playwright-helpers popularity was classified as popular.
We found that electron-playwright-helpers demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 1 open source maintainer collaborating on the project.
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