Re: [CODE4LIB] javascript testing?

[Jason Ronallo]

One problem with webdriver (selenium 2) testing is that Firefox can
pop up repeatedly when auto testing which can be really annoying. One
work around is to use a virtual display. Rather than headless testing
you can do something similar on a Linux system by using an X virtual
framebuffer (Xvfb) [1]. You create a virtual display, export the
DISPLAY environmental variable, and then run your tests that require
javascript or a browser from that shell environment. Your tests will
actually run in Firefox, but you don't have to see the window.

By the way, if you are using Ruby I think capybara (a replacement for
webrat) is worth a look for easy integration for javascript testing.
For instance I just have to tag a Cucumber feature as @selenium for
just those tests to run in a browser. All other tests can run in the
faster browserless mode.

But with all the buzz here about Jasmine, I'll have to check that out as well.

Jason

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xvfb

On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 9:37 AM, John Loy  wrote:
> Bess,
>
> Good to hear from you! I've been using Jasmine with its jQuery
> extensionfor HTML fixtures
> and DOM-related expect methods in
> tandem with Google's
> JsTestDriver .
> For data fixtures, take a look as Jupiter's jQuery fixtures
> plugin.
> Though you can run Jasmine in a continuous integration environment with its
> Gem, which in turn uses Selenium RC and Firefox, JsTestDriver allows
> simultaneous running of tests in multiple browsers. Headless testing doesn't
> make a whole lot of sense to me. I'd rather know for certain that my code is
> cross-browser.
>
> Hope you are well.
>
> Cheers,
> John
>
> On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 7:21 PM, Bess Sadler  wrote:
>
>> Can anyone recommend a javascript testing framework? At Stanford, we know
>> we need to test the js portions of our applications, but we haven't settled
>> on a tool for that yet. I've heard good things about celerity (
>> http://celerity.rubyforge.org/) but I believe it only works with jruby,
>> which has been a barrier to getting started with it so far. Anyone have
>> other tools to suggest? Is anyone doing javascript testing in a way they
>> like? Feel like sharing?
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> Bess
>>
>

Re: [CODE4LIB] javascript testing?

[Graham, Wayne (wsg4w)]

Hi Bess, 

+1 for Jasmine. Used to dig blue-ridge for these things, but I don't think
they're maintaining that any more.

Wayne 

On 1/27/11 9:37 AM, "John Loy"  wrote:

> Bess,
> 
> Good to hear from you! I've been using Jasmine with its jQuery
> extensionfor HTML fixtures
> and DOM-related expect methods in
> tandem with Google's
> JsTestDriver .
> For data fixtures, take a look as Jupiter's jQuery fixtures
> plugin.
> Though you can run Jasmine in a continuous integration environment with its
> Gem, which in turn uses Selenium RC and Firefox, JsTestDriver allows
> simultaneous running of tests in multiple browsers. Headless testing doesn't
> make a whole lot of sense to me. I'd rather know for certain that my code is
> cross-browser.
> 
> Hope you are well.
> 
> Cheers,
> John
> 
> On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 7:21 PM, Bess Sadler  wrote:
> 
>> Can anyone recommend a javascript testing framework? At Stanford, we know
>> we need to test the js portions of our applications, but we haven't settled
>> on a tool for that yet. I've heard good things about celerity (
>> http://celerity.rubyforge.org/) but I believe it only works with jruby,
>> which has been a barrier to getting started with it so far. Anyone have
>> other tools to suggest? Is anyone doing javascript testing in a way they
>> like? Feel like sharing?
>> 
>> Thanks!
>> 
>> Bess
>> 

Re: [CODE4LIB] javascript testing?

[John Loy]

Bess,

Good to hear from you! I've been using Jasmine with its jQuery
extensionfor HTML fixtures
and DOM-related expect methods in
tandem with Google's
JsTestDriver .
For data fixtures, take a look as Jupiter's jQuery fixtures
plugin.
Though you can run Jasmine in a continuous integration environment with its
Gem, which in turn uses Selenium RC and Firefox, JsTestDriver allows
simultaneous running of tests in multiple browsers. Headless testing doesn't
make a whole lot of sense to me. I'd rather know for certain that my code is
cross-browser.

Hope you are well.

Cheers,
John

On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 7:21 PM, Bess Sadler  wrote:

> Can anyone recommend a javascript testing framework? At Stanford, we know
> we need to test the js portions of our applications, but we haven't settled
> on a tool for that yet. I've heard good things about celerity (
> http://celerity.rubyforge.org/) but I believe it only works with jruby,
> which has been a barrier to getting started with it so far. Anyone have
> other tools to suggest? Is anyone doing javascript testing in a way they
> like? Feel like sharing?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Bess
>

Re: [CODE4LIB] javascript testing?

[Gabriel Farrell]

Hey Bess, dunno if you're still looking, but a friend just mentioned
this project running Jasmine tests headless with EnvJS:
https://github.com/trevmex/EnvJasmine. I haven't tried it out or
anything, but looks somewhat interesting.

On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 7:21 PM, Bess Sadler  wrote:
> Can anyone recommend a javascript testing framework? At Stanford, we know we 
> need to test the js portions of our applications, but we haven't settled on a 
> tool for that yet. I've heard good things about celerity 
> (http://celerity.rubyforge.org/) but I believe it only works with jruby, 
> which has been a barrier to getting started with it so far. Anyone have other 
> tools to suggest? Is anyone doing javascript testing in a way they like? Feel 
> like sharing?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Bess
>

Re: [CODE4LIB] javascript testing?

[Frank Bennett]

For testing of the citeproc-js utility (used in Zotero and Mendeley
bibliography managers), I use the DOH test framework from the Dojo
project.  When running code in Rhino (or other standalone interpreter
such as jslibs/jshost), It provides a command-line test environment,
similar to that used in Python and other scripting languages.  For
citeproc-js development I wanted to have a rapid command-line testing
cycle, and DOH has worked out quite well for that.

  http://dojotoolkit.org/reference-guide/util/doh.html

  
http://www.sitepen.com/blog/2008/04/15/unit-testing-custom-code-with-the-dojo-objective-harness/

  https://bitbucket.org/fbennett/citeproc-js/src

Frank Bennett

Re: [CODE4LIB] javascript testing?

[Jason Ronallo]

I've used Selenium with Cucumber just enough to know that I want to
try it more. I've segregated my tests into non-javascript cucumber
features that run fast and javascript tests that run much slower. I
run the fast tests with autotest as I develop features. Everything
ought to degrade nicely, so I develop these features first. Then as
javascript or ajax features are added, I can manually run the
javascript cucumber features which need Selenium. Not everything needs
to be tested through selenium, so I do not worry so much about the
speed. I haven't used this setup much yet, but so far I like the
workflow.

>From this page it looks like you do not need to run jruby to use
culerity. Celerity runs in JRuby, but your application doesn't need
to.
https://github.com/langalex/culerity

Jason

On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 7:21 PM, Bess Sadler  wrote:
> Can anyone recommend a javascript testing framework? At Stanford, we know we 
> need to test the js portions of our applications, but we haven't settled on a 
> tool for that yet. I've heard good things about celerity 
> (http://celerity.rubyforge.org/) but I believe it only works with jruby, 
> which has been a barrier to getting started with it so far. Anyone have other 
> tools to suggest? Is anyone doing javascript testing in a way they like? Feel 
> like sharing?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Bess
>

Re: [CODE4LIB] javascript testing?

[BRIAN TINGLE]

Mark Redar at CDL has some selenium tests for calisphere.org/mapped but they 
are not automatically run

I've been wanting to play around with selenium grid on EC2 but never had the 
time / real reason to -- but if it is as advertised it might speed up running 
the tests by executing them in parallel

http://selenium-grid.seleniumhq.org/
http://selenium-grid.seleniumhq.org/run_the_demo_on_ec2.html

-- Brian

On Jan 12, 2011, at 8:45 AM, Demian Katz wrote:

> For what it's worth, the VuFind community has recently been playing with 
> Selenium (not an especially new or exciting technology, I realize...  and 
> probably one of the things you were thinking of for approach #1).  The good 
> news is that it plays well with Hudson, and we have been able to get it to 
> successfully automatically test AJAXy code in Firefox as part of our 
> continuous integration process.  The bad news is that it's incredibly slow -- 
> that successful test takes ten minutes to execute, and all it does is load 
> one web page and confirm that a lightbox opens when a button is clicked.  I 
> wouldn't realistically expect this sort of thing to be FAST, but the current 
> performance we are experiencing stretches belief a bit -- we're still 
> investigating to see if we're doing something wrong that can be improved, but 
> the general consensus seems to be that Selenium is just really slow on 
> certain platforms.  It's a shame, because I think we could potentially write 
> a very comprehensi!
 ve!
>  and powerful test suite with Selenium...  but tests are significantly less 
> valuable if they can't give you reasonably quick feedback while you're in the 
> midst of coding!
> 
> In any case, I'm happy to share my limited experience with Selenium if it's 
> of any use (some VuFind-specific notes are here: 
> http://vufind.org/wiki/unit_tests#selenium and more can probably be gleaned 
> by looking at VuFind's test-related configuration and scripts).  I'd also be 
> very interested to hear if anyone has overcome the speed problems (which I've 
> encountered under both RedHat and Ubuntu, possibly related to using a virtual 
> frame buffer) or if there is a better, equivalent solution.
> 
> - Demian
> 
>> -Original Message-
>> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of
>> Jonathan Rochkind
>> Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2011 11:32 AM
>> To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
>> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] javascript testing?
>> 
>> As far as I can tell, while there are several, there are none that are
>> actually Just Work good.  It seems to be an area still in flux, people
>> coming up with an open source way to do that that is reliable and easy
>> to use and just works.
>> 
>> The main division in current approaches seems to be between: 1) Trying
>> to automate _actual browsers_ so you know you've tested it in the real
>> browsers you care about (the headaches of this are obvious, but people
>> are doing it!), and 2) Using a headless javascript browser that can be
>> run right on the server, to test general javascriptyness but without
>> testing idiosyncracies of particular browsers (I would lean towards
>> this
>> one myself, I'm willing to give up what it gives up for something that
>> works a lot simpler with less headaches).
>> 
>> Jonathan
>> 
>> On 1/11/2011 7:21 PM, Bess Sadler wrote:
>>> Can anyone recommend a javascript testing framework? At Stanford, we
>> know we need to test the js portions of our applications, but we
>> haven't settled on a tool for that yet. I've heard good things about
>> celerity (http://celerity.rubyforge.org/) but I believe it only works
>> with jruby, which has been a barrier to getting started with it so far.
>> Anyone have other tools to suggest? Is anyone doing javascript testing
>> in a way they like? Feel like sharing?
>>> 
>>> Thanks!
>>> 
>>> Bess
>>> 

Re: [CODE4LIB] javascript testing?

[Cary Gordon]

I have the MyEclipse debugger, but in practice, I don't use it often.
I have used a variety of Javascript dev platforms over the years,
starting with one that was bundled with ColdFusion Studio/Homesite,
and have found that they seem to take more time and effort than they
save.

I do use Firebug in Firefox, which is easy and effective. I have the
Javascript Debugger (nee Venkman) for Firefox, as well, but don't use
that much either. I am not sure what the Javascript capabilities of
Firebug Lite bookmarklet are in other browsers.

Thanks,

Cary

On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 4:21 PM, Bess Sadler  wrote:
> Can anyone recommend a javascript testing framework? At Stanford, we know we 
> need to test the js portions of our applications, but we haven't settled on a 
> tool for that yet. I've heard good things about celerity 
> (http://celerity.rubyforge.org/) but I believe it only works with jruby, 
> which has been a barrier to getting started with it so far. Anyone have other 
> tools to suggest? Is anyone doing javascript testing in a way they like? Feel 
> like sharing?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Bess
>



-- 
Cary Gordon
The Cherry Hill Company
http://chillco.com

Re: [CODE4LIB] javascript testing?

[Demian Katz]

For what it's worth, the VuFind community has recently been playing with 
Selenium (not an especially new or exciting technology, I realize...  and 
probably one of the things you were thinking of for approach #1).  The good 
news is that it plays well with Hudson, and we have been able to get it to 
successfully automatically test AJAXy code in Firefox as part of our continuous 
integration process.  The bad news is that it's incredibly slow -- that 
successful test takes ten minutes to execute, and all it does is load one web 
page and confirm that a lightbox opens when a button is clicked.  I wouldn't 
realistically expect this sort of thing to be FAST, but the current performance 
we are experiencing stretches belief a bit -- we're still investigating to see 
if we're doing something wrong that can be improved, but the general consensus 
seems to be that Selenium is just really slow on certain platforms.  It's a 
shame, because I think we could potentially write a very comprehensive!
  and powerful test suite with Selenium...  but tests are significantly less 
valuable if they can't give you reasonably quick feedback while you're in the 
midst of coding!

In any case, I'm happy to share my limited experience with Selenium if it's of 
any use (some VuFind-specific notes are here: 
http://vufind.org/wiki/unit_tests#selenium and more can probably be gleaned by 
looking at VuFind's test-related configuration and scripts).  I'd also be very 
interested to hear if anyone has overcome the speed problems (which I've 
encountered under both RedHat and Ubuntu, possibly related to using a virtual 
frame buffer) or if there is a better, equivalent solution.

- Demian

> -Original Message-
> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of
> Jonathan Rochkind
> Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2011 11:32 AM
> To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] javascript testing?
> 
> As far as I can tell, while there are several, there are none that are
> actually Just Work good.  It seems to be an area still in flux, people
> coming up with an open source way to do that that is reliable and easy
> to use and just works.
> 
> The main division in current approaches seems to be between: 1) Trying
> to automate _actual browsers_ so you know you've tested it in the real
> browsers you care about (the headaches of this are obvious, but people
> are doing it!), and 2) Using a headless javascript browser that can be
> run right on the server, to test general javascriptyness but without
> testing idiosyncracies of particular browsers (I would lean towards
> this
> one myself, I'm willing to give up what it gives up for something that
> works a lot simpler with less headaches).
> 
> Jonathan
> 
> On 1/11/2011 7:21 PM, Bess Sadler wrote:
> > Can anyone recommend a javascript testing framework? At Stanford, we
> know we need to test the js portions of our applications, but we
> haven't settled on a tool for that yet. I've heard good things about
> celerity (http://celerity.rubyforge.org/) but I believe it only works
> with jruby, which has been a barrier to getting started with it so far.
> Anyone have other tools to suggest? Is anyone doing javascript testing
> in a way they like? Feel like sharing?
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > Bess
> >

Re: [CODE4LIB] javascript testing?

[Jonathan Rochkind]

As far as I can tell, while there are several, there are none that are 
actually Just Work good.  It seems to be an area still in flux, people 
coming up with an open source way to do that that is reliable and easy 
to use and just works.


The main division in current approaches seems to be between: 1) Trying 
to automate _actual browsers_ so you know you've tested it in the real 
browsers you care about (the headaches of this are obvious, but people 
are doing it!), and 2) Using a headless javascript browser that can be 
run right on the server, to test general javascriptyness but without 
testing idiosyncracies of particular browsers (I would lean towards this 
one myself, I'm willing to give up what it gives up for something that 
works a lot simpler with less headaches).


Jonathan

On 1/11/2011 7:21 PM, Bess Sadler wrote:

Can anyone recommend a javascript testing framework? At Stanford, we know we 
need to test the js portions of our applications, but we haven't settled on a 
tool for that yet. I've heard good things about celerity 
(http://celerity.rubyforge.org/) but I believe it only works with jruby, which 
has been a barrier to getting started with it so far. Anyone have other tools 
to suggest? Is anyone doing javascript testing in a way they like? Feel like 
sharing?

Thanks!

Bess

Re: [CODE4LIB] javascript testing?

[Robert Forkel]

hi bess,
i've used yui test [1]. with this tool i still had to visit the page
of my test suite manually with a browser, but considering the browser
compatibility issues of javascript, i guess you'll have to do this
anyway.
regards,
robert

[1] http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/yuitest/

On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 1:21 AM, Bess Sadler  wrote:
> Can anyone recommend a javascript testing framework? At Stanford, we know we 
> need to test the js portions of our applications, but we haven't settled on a 
> tool for that yet. I've heard good things about celerity 
> (http://celerity.rubyforge.org/) but I believe it only works with jruby, 
> which has been a barrier to getting started with it so far. Anyone have other 
> tools to suggest? Is anyone doing javascript testing in a way they like? Feel 
> like sharing?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Bess
>

Re: [CODE4LIB] javascript testing?

[Erik Hatcher]

Here at Lucid we've got some Jasmine going on for LWE JS testing. 

Erik

On Jan 11, 2011, at 21:25, Gabriel Farrell  wrote:

> I like QUnit because it's minimal and I'm used to unit testing. A lot
> of people are jumping on Jasmine, though. It might be more your style
> if you're into BDD.
> 
> On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 7:21 PM, Bess Sadler  wrote:
>> Can anyone recommend a javascript testing framework? At Stanford, we know we 
>> need to test the js portions of our applications, but we haven't settled on 
>> a tool for that yet. I've heard good things about celerity 
>> (http://celerity.rubyforge.org/) but I believe it only works with jruby, 
>> which has been a barrier to getting started with it so far. Anyone have 
>> other tools to suggest? Is anyone doing javascript testing in a way they 
>> like? Feel like sharing?
>> 
>> Thanks!
>> 
>> Bess
>> 

Re: [CODE4LIB] javascript testing?

[Gabriel Farrell]

I like QUnit because it's minimal and I'm used to unit testing. A lot
of people are jumping on Jasmine, though. It might be more your style
if you're into BDD.

On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 7:21 PM, Bess Sadler  wrote:
> Can anyone recommend a javascript testing framework? At Stanford, we know we 
> need to test the js portions of our applications, but we haven't settled on a 
> tool for that yet. I've heard good things about celerity 
> (http://celerity.rubyforge.org/) but I believe it only works with jruby, 
> which has been a barrier to getting started with it so far. Anyone have other 
> tools to suggest? Is anyone doing javascript testing in a way they like? Feel 
> like sharing?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Bess
>