BY: KYLE ROGAHN COMPUTER SCIENCE SEMINAR UW PLATTEVILLE 4/3/2012 Web Browser Automation - Geb

Introduction Geb is a web browser automation tool JQuery + Webdriver + Groovy Advantageous in certain web development projects New: not even at version 1.0

On Deck Browser Automation – Geb at a high level Advantages Disadvantages What is it – the details  Webdriver  Groovy  Jquery  Page Object Model Example code  testing

Web Browser Automation Programmatically control your web browser Use this ability to write tests for web applications Improved quality assurance process

Advantages Eliminate tedious manual testing  Good fit for large projects with many test cases  Unit tests not enough to catch errors  Integration of complex systems  MVC example  Data Access Objects – retrieving customer information

Advantages Save time (and money)  Speed up navigation through many pages  Reduce data entry  What takes a person minutes Geb can do in seconds

Advantages Easy to learn  Readability  Semantics easy to figure out  Going to the google home page  “To” keyword, google home page defined as an object  To GoogleHomePage  Low learning curve

Disadvantages Less useful on smaller projects  May cost more time than it saves  Manual testing may suffice  Could still use it if desired Guaranteed Learning curve  Since it’s new there’s a high chance developers will not know it  Comes down to affordability  Although, learning curve is not that high

Disadvantages Configuration issues  Specific environment needed  If using a compatible environment already it is easy  May be tough otherwise  Grails, Maven, Gradle are suggested  Switching environments may be too costly Software Engineering Management Decisions

What Makes Up Geb WebDriver  Handles automation JQuery  Used for content selection Groovy  Syntax based on this language Page Object Model  Architecture that makes Geb powerful

WebDriver Driving force behind browser automation  Modifies document object model (DOM) components  Control browser behavior DOM components  Interface content  Buttons, text fields…etc WebDriver by itself vs. Geb  Geb is simpler, more readable, and easier to learn

WebDriver Example

Groovy Dynamic programming language for the JVM Similar to Ruby  Combined with some of the powerful features of Java  Integrates well with all Java libraries Supports mocking for unit testing Easy to learn and read

Groovy Example

Comparing to Ruby Class HelloExample Def hello entity puts “Hello, #{entity}!” end End def main example = HelloExample.new() example.hello(‘world’) end

JQuery Content Selection  Improvement over WebDriver’s DOM content selector  Important to quickly locate desired objects on a page Ability to modify html code Event handlers and overwriting Support for all major browsers Some of its syntax makes its way into Geb

Jquery Example

Testing Frameworks Geb can be combined with many testing frameworks Or used in-line Spock is the recommended framework  Included in the Geb package  Configuration: Import geb.spock.GebSpec  Clearest and most concise way to write Geb tests

In-line Geb Go vs driver.get(…) Assert without test framework  Webdriver: driver.getTitle() then compare using.equals $ - Jquery  sendKeys() in WebDriver

Page Object Model Non inline Geb programs – preferred Increase maintainability and reusability Based on the notion of page objects  Define a class for each page of your application  Call on page components when needed  Only have to use JQuery for lookup once Powerful!

Typical Page Class

Geb Testing Using Page Classes Test specifications  Specific names  Readability/Maintainability Spock framework  Extra keywords to simplify tests  Do something then check the result  Are we on the right page?  Did a certain component change?

Testing Example Go to the login page Make sure we’re there Try to login as an admin Click login Check if we are at the admin page

Conclusion Geb is easy to read, write, learn, and modify. Saves a large amount of testing time Larger application test coverage Page object model is powerful Effective keywords Read The Book of Geb  Watch the selenium conference speech: 