GUI testing for a webapplication

snowdog · 30 Apr 2015 at 09:59

Hello,

I'm currently looking for ways to ''record'' a set of actions of an MVC webapplication, to automatise testing to save time for manual testing.

My current solution is using PhantomJS ( headless browser), in combination with CasperJS with the Resurrectio plugin for chrome, this works ( it records user action and creates a CassperJS script which can be run with Phantom), however Resurrectio has problems recording actions within a frame ( yes I know, I frames are old but this particular website is built this way and will take a while to dump the iframes), and I have to manually script the navigation to certain pages, it is a bit time consuming to manually write all the scripts.

Do any of you guys know/have experience with a user-friendly/easier solution to record a set of actions of a website ( logging in, clicking a dozen buttons, asserting if something exists, making screenshots at various stages, etc?

planty · 30 Apr 2015 at 10:13

A company I worked at use Selenium - seems pretty decent, but I don't know much about it - no idea how easy it is to setup or use.

GravyMonster · 30 Apr 2015 at 11:45

^ Another vote for Selenium. Simple to setup and write tests for in XPath.

DanF · 30 Apr 2015 at 11:50

you could check out Seleno, it's a wrapper around selenium

https://github.com/TestStack/TestStack.Seleno

DodgeeRascal · 30 Apr 2015 at 15:53

We've been using Geb with Spock for our automated screen tests.

http://www.gebish.org/

Probably not as easy to get up and go with as Selenium but we don't hear the test guys writing them complain

Phonesis · 7 May 2015 at 16:57

Hi snowdog,

I'm very knowledgeable with Selenium and use it on a daily basis. What language are you looking to write tests in? C#?

You can download Selenium Webdriver as a Nuget package in Visual Studio.

Once done, you can utilise it (it is a library) in your solution as part of unit tests using any runner you like (MSTest, NUnit, etc). It will handle frames without issue. I have done this many times running against old classic .asp websites.

Let me know if you need help with getting going. There really is no better tool or library out there for front end web test automation. But you need to do all the coding. No record and play feature.

If you need record and play and have Visual Studio Premium, check out CodedUI. It is a Microsoft tool and very good.

snowdog · 8 May 2015 at 07:04

Thanks guys, haven't been at work due to being ill for a while but I'll be going today!

Well, the language wasn't that important as it was the actions that were important, however, seeing as it supports C#, I'll go with that for webdriver, but for now I'll save them in html.

I have tried Selenium IDE for Firefox and it is much more user friendly than CasperJS.

I haven't yet tried the Selenium Webdriver in VS, I will give Webdriver a go next week though.

Phonesis · 8 May 2015 at 09:20

If I were you snowdog I'd focus on Webdriver and forget IDE. It is only really for doing very basic stuff and you will learn a lot by using Webdriver. If you are already familiar with C# and VS then the jump to using Webdriver will be quite painless and you will end up with some decent tests within your solution.

NarChaDBaueR · 8 May 2015 at 10:27

Another vote for webdriver, we initially started using it with Java where I work but recently moved over to JavaScript and Protractor as the project we are working on is mainly a front end JavaScript project. This means the developers can get involved in creating page objects which can be used for the tests.

http://angular.github.io/protractor/#/