nightwatch

What is nightwatch?

Nightwatch is an end-to-end testing framework for web applications and websites, written in Node.js. It uses the W3C WebDriver API to perform commands and assertions on DOM elements. Nightwatch is designed to be easy to set up and use, and it provides a powerful and flexible API for writing tests.

What are nightwatch's main functionalities?

End-to-End Testing

Nightwatch allows you to perform end-to-end testing by automating browser interactions. This example initializes the browser, navigates to a URL, waits for the body element to be visible, asserts the page title, and then ends the session.

const { client } = require('nightwatch');

client.init()
  .url('http://example.com')
  .waitForElementVisible('body', 1000)
  .assert.title('Example Domain')
  .end();

Page Object Model

Nightwatch supports the Page Object Model, which helps in organizing your test code by separating the page-specific selectors and actions from the test logic. This example shows how to define a page object and use it in a test.

module.exports = {
  url: 'http://example.com',
  elements: {
    body: 'body',
    title: 'title'
  }
};

// In your test file
const examplePage = client.page.example();

examplePage.navigate()
  .waitForElementVisible('@body', 1000)
  .assert.title('Example Domain');

Assertions

Nightwatch provides a variety of built-in assertions to validate the state of your application. This example demonstrates how to assert that the body element contains specific text.

client.init()
  .url('http://example.com')
  .waitForElementVisible('body', 1000)
  .assert.containsText('body', 'Example Domain')
  .end();

Other packages similar to nightwatch

selenium-webdriver

Selenium WebDriver is a popular tool for automating web applications for testing purposes. It provides a more low-level API compared to Nightwatch, which can offer more flexibility but requires more setup and boilerplate code.

cypress

Cypress is a modern end-to-end testing framework that aims to make testing fast, easy, and reliable. Unlike Nightwatch, Cypress runs in the same run-loop as your application, which allows for more consistent and reliable tests. However, it currently only supports JavaScript.

webdriverio

WebdriverIO is a test automation framework that allows you to run tests based on the WebDriver protocol and Appium. It offers a more extensive plugin system compared to Nightwatch, allowing for greater customization and integration with other tools.

README

Nightwatch

UI automated testing framework powered by Node.js. It uses the Selenium WebDriver API.

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Homepage | Developer Guide | API Reference

Selenium WebDriver standalone server

Nightwatch works with the Selenium standalone server so the first thing you need to do is download the selenium server jar file selenium-server-standalone-2.x.x.jar from the Selenium releases page: http://selenium-release.storage.googleapis.com/index.html

Install Nightwatch

Install Node.js and then:

$ git clone [e-mail]:nightwatchjs/nightwatch.git
$ cd nightwatch
$ npm install

Run tests

The tests for nightwatch are written using nodeunit as the test framework. To run the nodeunit tests do:

$ npm test

Discuss

The Mailing List/Google Group is the most appropriate tool for Nightwatch related discussions. In addition, there is a StackOverflow Nightwatch.js tag at your disposal and Twitter.

Setup Guides

Browser specific setup and usage guides along with debugging instructions can be found on the Wiki.