End-to-end Testing of Your Web Applications with Canopy

Why Canopy

Stabilization Layer Built on Top of Selenium

One of the most crucial concepts of canopy is reliability - when performing an action framework tries during time span specified via elementTimeout or compareTimeout or pageTimeout before failing which improves experience during writing tests.

Expressiveness

The syntax looks pretty self-explanatory:

"Bio should contain twitter link" &&& fun _ ->
    url "https://github.com/Wkalmar"
    ".user-profile-bio" == "https://twitter.com/BohdanStupak1"

F#

In one of my previous articles, I have already expressed my opinion regarding power and expressiveness of F#.

Writing More Tests

To start, just create a console application, install nuget package canopy and create tests in Program.fs like below:

open canopy.configuration
open canopy.runner.classic
open System
open canopy.classic

//set path for chrome direver explicitly
chromeDir <- "C:\\"
start chrome

"Left bottom repostitory should be stationwalk.server" &&& fun _ ->
    //visit the following url
    url "https://github.com/Wkalmar"
    //get 4th child of the following selector
    let repo = nth 4 ".pinned-repo-item"
    //get element with the following selector inside repo element
    let firstRepoCaption = repo |> someElementWithin ".js-repo"
    match firstRepoCaption with    
    | Some caption -> read caption == "stationwalk.server" //if found read element caption 
                                                           //and compare it
    | None _ -> failwith "Element not found" //if none element found throw an exception

"Left bottom repostitory should be stationwalk.client" &&& fun _ ->
    url "https://github.com/Wkalmar"
    let repo = nth 5 ".pinned-repo-item"
    let firstRepoCaption = repo |> someElementWithin ".js-repo"
    match firstRepoCaption with
    | Some caption -> read caption == "stationwalk.client"
    | None _ -> failwith "Element not found"

"Bio should contain twitter link" &&& fun _ ->
    url "https://github.com/Wkalmar"
    ".user-profile-bio" == "https://twitter.com/BohdanStupak1"

run()

printfn "Press any key to exit..."
Console.ReadKey() |> ignore

quit()

Accessing IWebDriver

If you've ever written tests with selenium using C#, you might be aware of IWebDriver interface which you still might use for some advanced configuration. For example, let's say we want to run out tests with a browser opened fullscreen. Then we can add the following function to our Program.fs file

let maximizeBrowser (browser : IWebDriver) =    
  browser.Manage().Window.Maximize()

Accessing IWebElement

Most of canopy's assertions, i.e., == accept as a parameter either a string which can be css or xpath selector or instance of IWebElement type which again might be already familiar to you if you've ever written selenium tests using C#. So let's say we want to upload something into file upload control.

let uploadFile fullFilePath =
  (element "input[type='file']").SendKeys(fullFilePath)

Splitting Up Big File

Patterns which I've practiced to keep test project maintainable is extracting selectors into page modules and move tests to separate files.

Let's revisit our github example by moving out selectors into the separate module:

module GithubProfilePage

let pinnedRepository = ".pinned-repo-item"
let bio = ".user-profile-bio"

Now we can reference them in test which we'll move into separate module too:

module GithubProfileTests

open canopy.runner.classic
open canopy.classic

let all() =
    context "Github page tests"

    "Left bottom repostitory should be staionwalk.server" &&& fun _ ->
        url "https://github.com/Wkalmar"
        let repo = nth 4 GithubProfilePage.pinnedRepository
        let firstRepoCaption = repo |> someElementWithin ".js-repo"
        match firstRepoCaption with
        | Some caption -> read caption == "stationwalk.server"
        | None _ -> failwith "Element not found"

    "Right bottom repostitory should be staionwalk.client" &&& fun _ ->
        url "https://github.com/Wkalmar"
        let repo = nth 5 GithubProfilePage.pinnedRepository
        let firstRepoCaption = repo |> someElementWithin ".js-repo"
        match firstRepoCaption with
        | Some caption -> read caption == "stationwalk.client"
        | None _ -> failwith "Element not found"

    "Bio should contain twitter link" &&& fun _ ->
        url "https://github.com/Wkalmar"
        GithubProfilePage.bio == "https://twitter.com/BohdanStupak1"

Our Program.fs will look like this:

open canopy.configuration
open canopy.runner.classic
open System
open canopy.classic

chromeDir <- "C:\\"
start chrome

GithubProfileTests.all()

run()

printfn "Press any key to exit..."
Console.ReadKey() |> ignore

quit()

Running Test in Parallel

Recently, canopy had a major upgrade from 1.x to 2.x and one of the great new features is the ability to run tests in parallel.

Let's revisit our example by using this ability:

module GithubProfileTests

open canopy.parallell.functions
open canopy.types
open prunner

let all() =  
    "Left bottom repostitory should be stationwalk.server" &&& fun _ ->
        let browser = start Chrome        
        url "https://github.com/Wkalmar" browser
        let repo = nth 4 GithubProfilePage.pinnedRepository browser
        let firstRepoCaption = someElementWithin ".js-repo" repo browser
        match firstRepoCaption with
        | Some caption -> equals (read caption browser) "stationwalk.server" browser
        | None _ -> failwith "Element not found"

    "Right bottom repostitory should be stationwalk.client" &&& fun _ ->
        let browser = start Chrome        
        url "https://github.com/Wkalmar" browser
        let repo = nth 5 GithubProfilePage.pinnedRepository browser
        let firstRepoCaption = someElementWithin ".js-repo" repo browser
        match firstRepoCaption with
        | Some caption -> equals (read caption browser) "stationwalk.client" browser
        | None _ -> failwith "Element not found"

    "Bio should contain twitter link" &&& fun _ ->
        let browser = start Chrome        
        url "https://github.com/Wkalmar" browser
        equals GithubProfilePage.bio "https://twitter.com/BohdanStupak1" browser

The key trick to follow here is that each test operates now with its own copy of browser and assertions are now taken from open canopy.parallel.functions accept browser as an argument. Also, please note the prunner dependency which can be taken from here.

Headless Testing

Testing in a headless browser seems to be a new black now. Although I don't share the sentiment, I still can assure you that testing in headless browsers is supported by canopy. You can run your tests in headless chrome as follows:

let browser = start ChromeHeadless

Conclusion

I hope this article has convinced you that canopy is a robust and easy to use framework which can be used in building end-to-end testing layer of your application.