testcafe-browser-tools

What is testcafe-browser-tools?

The testcafe-browser-tools npm package provides a set of tools for interacting with and controlling web browsers. It is primarily used in conjunction with TestCafe, a popular end-to-end testing framework, to perform various browser-related tasks such as taking screenshots, resizing windows, and more.

What are testcafe-browser-tools's main functionalities?

Take Screenshot

This feature allows you to take a screenshot of the current browser window. The `takeScreenshot` function accepts an options object where you can specify the path to save the screenshot and whether to capture the full page.

const browserTools = require('testcafe-browser-tools');

browserTools.takeScreenshot({
  path: 'screenshot.png',
  fullPage: true
}).then(() => {
  console.log('Screenshot taken');
}).catch(err => {
  console.error('Error taking screenshot:', err);
});

Resize Window

This feature allows you to resize the browser window to specified dimensions. The `resize` function accepts an options object where you can specify the width and height of the window.

const browserTools = require('testcafe-browser-tools');

browserTools.resize({
  width: 1024,
  height: 768
}).then(() => {
  console.log('Window resized');
}).catch(err => {
  console.error('Error resizing window:', err);
});

Close Browser

This feature allows you to close the current browser window. The `close` function does not require any parameters and returns a promise that resolves when the browser is closed.

const browserTools = require('testcafe-browser-tools');

browserTools.close().then(() => {
  console.log('Browser closed');
}).catch(err => {
  console.error('Error closing browser:', err);
});

Other packages similar to testcafe-browser-tools

puppeteer

Puppeteer is a Node library which provides a high-level API to control Chrome or Chromium over the DevTools Protocol. It can be used for taking screenshots, generating PDFs, and automating form submissions, among other things. Compared to testcafe-browser-tools, Puppeteer offers more comprehensive browser automation capabilities but is more complex to set up and use.

selenium-webdriver

Selenium WebDriver is a popular tool for automating web applications for testing purposes. It supports multiple browsers and programming languages. While it offers extensive browser control and automation features similar to testcafe-browser-tools, it is generally more complex and requires a Selenium server to run.

nightwatch

Nightwatch is an end-to-end testing framework that uses the W3C WebDriver API to interact with browsers. It provides a simple syntax for writing tests and includes built-in support for running tests in parallel. Compared to testcafe-browser-tools, Nightwatch is more focused on testing and less on general browser control.

README

testcafe-browser-tools

TestСafe Browser Tools is an utility library for performing platform-dependent actions on browser windows. Working with browsers is specific for each operating system and requires native code to deal with. In order to provide painless and simple installation, this package encapsulates pre-built binaries for all supported platforms and JS-wrappers around them. This helps end-users avoid running post-npm-install build actions.  

Build Process

To build native binaries from source files, execute the gulp task corresponding to your operating system:

'buildWin'
'buildMac'
'buildLinux'

Important note: The application for a particular platform must be built on a machine with the same platform. Since this package can be used on old OS version such as NodeJS 16 docker container, it is important to build binaries on the old OS version for the binaries to contain corresponding dependencies(for example glibc-2.31 for node16 docker image).

The bin directory contains pre-built native binaries. Consider using them if your contribution does not affect the native modules.

Install

$ npm install testcafe-browser-tools

API Reference

Important note: To identify the web browser window, most of the provided functions use its title. This title matches the web page's document.title in most of the browsers. However, Microsoft Edge truncates the window title to the hostname if document.title contains only a URL ( e.g. document.title = 'http://localhost:1337/page' gives localhost in the window title).

So, you need to add some characters before the URL in order to bring it to the window title:

document.title = 'title: ' + document.location.toString()

For API reference, see the API document.

Testing

To run automated tests:

$ npm test

Since the module functionality depends on browsers available on a testing machine and you cannot predict expected returned values for some functions, the automated tests cover only a part of the functionality. To test all the functions provided by the module, use the playground. To run it, execute the gulp task corresponding to your operating system:

$ gulp runPlaygroundWin
$ gulp runPlaygroundMac
$ gulp runPlaygroundLinux

This will open the Playground web page at http://localhost:1334/, where you can manually check if the functions work correctly.

Author

Developer Express Inc.(http://devexpress.com)