webdriver-mocha

NOTE: This module is not quite ready! Only a few commands work, and it's hard-wired to use Phantomjs. More to follow though.

Motivation

To use WebDriver within Mocha we currently have to use a different test-runner (such as Protractor) or we have to do this:

require('chai').should();
 
var webdriver = require('selenium-webdriver'),
    By = webdriver.By,
    until = webdriver.until;
 
var driver = new webdriver.Builder()
    .forBrowser('firefox')
    .build();
 
describe('my blog', () => {
  it('should navigate to post', done => {
    driver.get('http://markbirbeck.com/')
    .then(() => driver.getTitle())
      .then((title) => title.should.equal('Mark Birbeck\'s Blog'))
    .then(() => driver.quit())
    .then(() => done())
    .catch(error => done(error))
    ;
  });
});

(For more examples see Writing Tests and Promises in the WebDriverJS User’s Guide.)

There are four improvements that we'd like to make:

• avoid having to nest every WebDriver command in a simple function (for example, () => driver.getTitle());
• be able to use promise-related libraries like Chai as Promised;
• be able to dispense with done() and catch() in Mocha by returning a promise;
• be able to use driver, By and until without having to repeat the declarations at the top of every test file.

Using Promises

The first three points should all be possible, but since the promises that WebDriver returns are not 'compatible' with those used in other libraries -- such as Mocha and Chai as Promised -- they all fail.

For example, to use WebDriver commands like getTitle() we are obliged to nest them in a simple function:

    .
    .
    .then(() => driver.getTitle())
      .then(title => title.should.equal('Mark Birbeck\'s Blog'))
    .
    .

However, what we should be able to do is simply pass a reference to the WebDriver function, like this:

    .
    .
    .then(driver.getTitle)
      .then(title => title.should.equal('Mark Birbeck\'s Blog'))
    .
    .

Although WebDriver claims to return promises for commands the type of promises being used are not compatible with other libraries -- like Mocha -- and what should be a chain of promises turns out not to be (i.e., the promises are not being 'followed'). To get this to work we have to wrap calls to WebDriver functions with a more 'standard' promise:

    .
    .
    .then(() => Promise.resolve(driver.getTitle()))
      .then(title => title.should.equal('Mark Birbeck\'s Blog'))
    .
    .

To make this wrapping easier, the webdriver-mocha module wraps all of the WebDriver commands with 'proper' promises and therefore allows the more direct syntax.

Note that doing this wrapping makes it possible to use Chai as Promised, which won't work with the promises that WebDriver is using. It also means that we can take advantage of a key benefit of Mocha which is that if a test returns a promise then Mocha will handle rejected promises. This means we can dispense with calling done() to terminate the test, and avoid the need to provide the catch() handler.

Easy Inclusion in Mocha

Rather than having to declare the imports and variables for WebDriver at the top of each test file we'd like to incude them as globals to Mocha. This module also facilitates that, making driver, By and until available.

Note that since this module takes responsibility for creating driver it also takes responsibility for calling driver.quit() when all tests are complete.

An Example

The example we began with can now be expressed like this:

let chai = require('chai');
chai.use(require('chai-as-promised'));
chai.should();
 
require('webdriver-mocha');
 
describe('my blog', () => {
  it('should navigate to post', () => {
    return driver.get('http://markbirbeck.com/')
    .then(
      driver.getTitle()
      .should.eventually.equal('Mark Birbeck\'s Blog')
    )
    .then(() =>
      driver.findElement(
        By.linkText('A Mixin Approach to Material Design Lite Using Sass')
      ).click()
    )
    .then(
      driver.getTitle()
      .should.eventually.equal('A Mixin Approach to Material Design Lite Using Sass')
    )
    ;
  });
});

Note the addition of Chai as Promised, the removal of driver.quit(), and -- thanks to the return statement at the start of the test -- the omission of the two done() handlers.

Loading the webdriver-mocha module has given us:

• access to driver, By and until in exactly the same way as many snippets of code to be found on the web, making it easy to include them, and;
• the use of 'proper' promises on the commands, improving the integration with other libraries that use promises, such as Chai as Promised, and of course Mocha itself.

Using With Linting Tools

Be sure to add driver, By and until as globals in your linting tool. For example, for ESLint we have:

{
  "env": {
    "mocha": true
  },
  "globals": {
    "driver": true,
    "By": true,
    "until": true
  }
}

See the two .eslintrc files in this project for an example.