Simplified FE testing with Selenium
The Programmatic Innovations team is proud to announce the release of Preceptor, Hodman, and Kobold, a collection of Node modules that will simplify front-end testing by doing all the laborious and hard work that is needed to create a complete Selenium testing framework.
Run tests - collect results and coverage-reports in one place
Preceptor is a test-runner that knows how to run and communicate with multiple testing frameworks, including popular frameworks such as Mocha and Cucumber.Js. Preceptor is able to coordinate when, how, and what should be run, facilitating the composition of independent test-suites across testing frameworks that can be run in parallel, sequentially, or a combination thereof, each running in its own process.
The configuration of Preceptor is easy - simply list the tasks that should be run:
"tasks": [ { "type": "mocha", "title": "UI integration tests", "suite": true, // Wrap tests in a test-suite using the title from above "coverage": true, // Collect code-coverage reports "decorator": [ webDriverDecorator ], // Setup Selenium web-driver "configuration": { // Mocha configuration "paths": [__dirname + "/ui/integration/index.js"], "timeOut": 60000, "slow": 20000 } }, { "type": "cucumber", "title": "UI Acceptance tests", "suite": true, "coverage": true, "decorator": [ webDriverDecorator ], "configuration": { // Cucumber configuration "path": __dirname + "/ui/acceptance" } } ]
Test results from each testing framework are collected, organized, and combined in one place, even when tests were run in parallel. Through an extensive list of customizable reporters, Preceptor will create a consistent output across frameworks. In addition to test results, Preceptor also collects coverage reports by automatically instrumenting your JavaScript code, aggregating the reports into one final and complete coverage report.
Since Preceptor knows how to talk to the frameworks, it is able to react to events within the testing-lifecycle, making it possible to inject code for setup, teardown, or any other code that is needed to simplify your tests.
Selenium/WebDriver plugin
Preceptor comes with a WebDriver plugin that will acquire browser sessions through commonly used Selenium services such as SauceLabs, BrowserStack, or by using binaries such as ChromeDriver, PhantomJs, or the Selenium stand-alone server, connecting sessions to a WebDriver client that can be used by the tests without having to write a line of code. The plugin is also capable of collecting browser-side coverage reports that will be mapped and combined with the server-side collected coverage data.
Best practices for Selenium tests
Adhering to best practices for test creation can reduce the time that is needed to maintain these tests. However, creating the infrastructure can easily use-up valuable project time that could have been spent more productively. Hodman was created to mitigate these problems by providing commonly used objects that includes page-objects to support modern single-page applications. In addition, Hodman supplies generic service-objects for accessing RESTful APIs, and storage-objects to lazily create and delete test-data when they are needed.
Visual regression testing made easy
Visual testing has never been easy but rather error prone and difficult. To alleviate this, we created Kobold that can be used together with Hodman to capture webpages or smaller sub-sections of a website, automatically blacking-out elements to reduce false-positives. Kobold is then able to compare the images to previously approved ones without having to write a line of code, producing test-results that should be expected from a testing framework.
Each of the above mentioned modules can be used independently and do not have to be used in conjunction, however, together they create a truly unique testing experience.
All-in-all, Preceptor, Hodman, and Kobold were created to take the pain away from front-end testing. Give it a try, and see how enjoyable front-end testing can be.
Interested?
Come and join us when we host the South Bay Selenium Meetup on December 9th at our main campus in Sunnyvale. Learn how these tools came to be and how we use them to test our UI.
The Programmatic Innovations Team
