pixels-catcher

pixels-catcher

Library for testing React Native UI components and screens

Getting started

Install and link

$ npm install pixels-catcher --save

The library depend on react-native-save-view which is used to convert View to base64 data and has native implementation. Therefore the linking is required and this can be easily done with the following step:

$ react-native link react-native-save-view

If for some reasons it doesn't work, check official react native documentation.

Create test

Create new entry file, for example, indexSnapshot, and import registerSnapshot, runSnapshots and Snapshot from pixels-catcher:

import {
  registerSnapshot,
  runSnapshots,
  Snapshot,
} from 'pixels-catcher';

After that create the snapshot component, which should extend Snapshot and implement static snapshotName and renderContent method. Be sure that your component can accept collapsable property, otherwise React can make an optimization and drop the view. The implementation can be:

class AppSnapshot extends Snapshot {
  static snapshotName = 'AppSnapshot';

  renderContent() {
    return (<App />);
  }
}

after that register AppSnapshot component:

registerSnapshot(AppSnapshot);

and trigger runSnapshots which will register the application component and run all snapshots:

runSnapshots(PUT_YOUR_APP_NAME_HERE);

Snapshots testing will be started as soon as the application is started.

Configuration

There are two options to define config:

• Using pixels-catcher.json file in the root of the project
• Using package.json file with new property PixelsCatcher

And both of these two options should describe the configuration according to the following format:

PixelsCatcher: {
  PLATFORM: {
    ...SHARED_CONFIGURATION,
    CONFIGURATION: {
      ...CONFIGURATION_SPECIFIC
    }
  }
}

where

• PLATFORM can be android or ios
• CONFIGURATION is a configuration with the following properties:
  • activityName - Activity name, example: MainActivity.
  • appFile - [Optional] Path to apk file on adroid or app folder on iOS, example: ./app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk
  • deviceName - Device name, for example emulator: Nexus_5X or iOS: iPhone 8 Plus
  • deviceParams - [Optional] Array of emulator params like -no-audio, -no-snapshot, -no-window, etc.
  • physicalDevice - [Optional] Boolean value that indicates if real device should be used (iOS devices are not supported yet)
  • packageName - Android package name, example: com.rumax.pixelscatcher.testapp
  • snapshotsPath - Path to snapshots, example: ./snapshotsImages
• SHARED_CONFIGURATION. In case more that one configurations exists, shared parameters can be moved here.

Example for package.json configuration (or check demo project):

"PixelsCatcher": {
  "android": {
    "activityName": "MainActivity",
    "deviceName": "Nexus_5X",
    "packageName": "com.rumax.pixelscatcher.testapp",
    "snapshotsPath": "./snapshotsImages",
    "debug": {
      "deviceParams": ["-no-audio", "-no-snapshot"],
      "appFile": "./android/app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk"
    },
    "release": {
      "deviceParams": ["-no-audio", "-no-snapshot", "-no-window"],
      "appFile": "./android/app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk"
    }
  },
  "ios": {
    "deviceName": "iPhone 8 Plus",
    "packageName": "org.reactjs.native.example.testApp",
    "snapshotsPath": "./snapshotsImagesIOS",
    "dev": {},
    "debug": {
      "appFile": "./ios/build/Build/Products/Debug-iphonesimulator/testApp.app"
    }
  }
}

Run android

To run android emulator, emulator command is used. It has to be defined in the system PATH or an ANDROID_EMULATOR system variable can be used to specify it.

There are two options to run UI snapshots:

1. Using the generated apk file, provided via the appFile. In this case pixels-catcher will open android emulator, install apk file, execute all the tests and will provide a report at the end. This scenario can be used to integrate the screenshot testing with CI.

2. In cases appFile is not defined, the development mode will be used. This means that only the server will be started and the application should be started manually. This scenario can be used to debug snapshots, create new reference images, etc.

To run tests execute the following command:

$ ./node_modules/.bin/pixels-catcher android debug

Generating APK file

By default the index.android.js file is used which refer to your application. To fix it, in android/app/build.gradle add the following config:

project.ext.react = [
    entryFile: System.getProperty("entryFile") ?: "index.js",
    bundleInDebug: System.getProperty("bundleInDebug") ? System.getProperty("bundleInDebug").toBoolean() : false
]

And generate the apk:

cd android && ./gradlew assembleDebug -DentryFile="indexSnapshot.js"

Run iOS

Same as android there are two options to run UI snapshots:

1. Using the generated app, provided via the appFile. In this case pixels-catcher will open iOS simulator, install app, execute all the tests and will provide a report at the end. This scenario can be used to integrate the screenshot testing with CI.

2. In cases appFile is not defined, the development mode will be used. This means that only the server will be started and the application should be started manually. This scenario can be used to debug snapshots, create new reference images, etc.

To run tests execute the following command:

$ ./node_modules/.bin/pixels-catcher ios debug

Generating iOS app

To make a valid app you will need to do the following actions:

• Set the FORCE_BUNDLING environment variable, which is required to generate a bundle file
• Set RCT_NO_LAUNCH_PACKAGER to ignore the packager
• Use different entry file which includes only snapshots or some flag that will switch your app to "testing" mode

You can also check the demo project and check the required changes.

Run device

While android emulator or iOS simulator is able to work with localhost with default values http://10.0.2.2:3000 for android and http://127.0.0.1:3000 for iOS, using the real device will require connecting to the server by real IP. To make it possible, pixels-catcher allows to define it using the baseUrl property that is passed to the runSnapshots method:

const baseUrl = 'http://127.0.0.1:3000';

// Snapshots implementation

runSnapshots(appName, { baseUrl });

Demo

Check the demo which includes an example how the snapshots can be done and also has some useful scripts that can be used to integrate with CI.

License

MIT

Author

• rumax

Other information

• If you think that something is missing or would like to propose new feature, please, discuss it with the author
• Please, ⭐️ the project. This gives the confidence that you like it and a great job was done by publishing and supporting it 🤩