WatiN Firefox Community Technology Preview

This article explains the basic principles for creating and running WatiN tests on both Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Index

  1. Download and install WatiN Firefox Community Technology Preview.
  2. Creating a simple test that runs on both Internet Explorer and FireFox
  3. Creating a generic mechanism for executing tests that run on both Internet Explorer and FireFox
  4. Converting an existing WatiN test to run on both Internet Explorer and FireFox
  5. WatiN FireFox CTP Feature completeness.
  6. Known issues.

Download and install WatiN Firefox Community Technology Preview

  • Make sure you have Firefox version 2.0 or higher installed.
  • Next you should download the WatiN Firefox Community Technology Preview and unzip it into an appropriate directory Assuming you have unzipped the release to c:\Program Files\WatiNFirefox\
  • A plugin jssh is used by WatiN to automate Firefox to carry out tests. To install the plugin:
    • Open FireFox
    • Click File -> Open File
    • Navigate to your WatiN installation folder i.e. c:\Program Files\WatiNFirefox\Mozilla and open the file jssh-WINNT-2.x.xpi

Creating a test that runs on both Internet Explorer and FireFox

Please look at the UnitTest sample in the samples directory of WatiNFirefox for more detailed code examples

        [Test]
        public void SearchForWatiNOnGoogleVerbose()
        {
            using (IBrowser ie = BrowserFactory.Create(BrowserType.InternetExplorer))
            {
                ie.GoTo("http://www.google.com");
                ie.TextField(Find.ByName("q")).Value = "WatiN";
                ie.Button(Find.ByName("btnG")).Click();
                Assert.IsTrue(ie.ContainsText("WatiN"));
            }
 
            using (IBrowser firefox = BrowserFactory.Create(BrowserType.FireFox))
            {
                firefox.GoTo("http://www.google.com");
                firefox.TextField(Find.ByName("q")).Value = "WatiN";
                firefox.Button(Find.ByName("btnG")).Click();
                Assert.IsTrue(firefox.ContainsText("WatiN"));
            }
        }

Generic mechanism for executing tests.

The test below executes a single test once for each browser type using a delegate mechanism. This mechanism isn't shown here but can be found in the BaseTest.cs sample class located in the samples folder:

        /// <summary>
        /// Searches for WatiN on google using both Internet Explorer and Firefox.
        /// </summary>
        [Test]
        public void SearchForWatiNOnGoogleUsingBaseTest()
        {
            // Call ExecuteTest in the base class, the base class handles creating and disposing
            // of browser instances, and will call the passed in delegate 
            // SearchForWatiNOnGoogleUsingBaseTest(IBrowser browser) once for each type of 
            // browser supported by WatiN (Internet Explorer and Firefox at the moment).
            base.ExecuteTest(SearchForWatiNOnGoogleUsingBaseTest);
        }
 
        /// <summary>
        /// Searches for WatiN on google using the passed in <paramref name="browser"/>.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="browser">The browser.</param>
        private void SearchForWatiNOnGoogleUsingBaseTest(IBrowser browser)
        {
            GoTo("http://www.google.com", browser);                
            browser.TextField(Find.ByName("q")).Value = "WatiN";
            browser.Button(Find.ByName("btnG")).Click();
            Assert.IsTrue(browser.ContainsText("WatiN"));            
        }

Converting existing tests to be cross browser tests.

The test below shows a traditional WaitN unit test:

    [TestFixture]
    public class PortingExample : CrossBrowserTest 
    {
        [Test]
        public void IETest()
        {
            using (IE internetExplorer = new IE())
            {
                internetExplorer.GoTo(Path.Combine(Environment.CurrentDirectory, "Tables.html"));
                Table table = internetExplorer.Table("Table1");
 
                Assert.IsNotNull(table, "Table not located");
                Assert.AreEqual("Table1", table.Id, "Incorrect table element found.");
                Assert.AreEqual(2, table.TableBodies.Length, "Incorrect no. of table bodies found.");
 
                TableCell cell = (TableCell) table.TableRows[0].TableCells[0];
                Assert.IsTrue(cell.Text.StartsWith("1"), "Cell's text did not start with the expected" 
                    + " character 1. Instead found: " + cell.Text);
            }
        }

The above test can be ported to be a cross-browser test by simply replacing the concrete IE references with the approprite interfaces. For example Table becomes ITable. The ported test below uses inherited functionality from the WatiN.Core.UnitTest.CrossBrowserTest class.

        private void PortedTest(IBrowser browser)
        {
            browser.GoTo(Path.Combine(Environment.CurrentDirectory, "Tables.html"));
            ITable table = browser.Table("Table1");
 
            Assert.IsNotNull(table, "Table not located");
            Assert.AreEqual("Table1", table.Id, "Incorrect table element found.");
            Assert.AreEqual(2, table.TableBodies.Length, "Incorrect no. of table bodies found.");
 
            ITableCell cell = table.TableRows[0].TableCells[0];
            Assert.IsTrue(cell.Text.StartsWith("1"), "Cell's text did not start with the expected" 
                + " character 1. Instead found: " + cell.Text);
        }


WatiN FireFox CTP Feature completeness

Feature Status
Browser Partial
Elements Complete
Element collections Complete
Dialog Handlers Missing

Known issues

  • This implementation relies heavily on the use of interfaces (IBrowser, IElement etc..). In the final release these interfaces will be replaced by concreet classes, as in the previous releases of WatiN
  • WatiN Firefox Community Technology Preview requires .Net 2.0 or higher.
  • In some situation a restore dialog might appear when creating a FireFox instance. Currently we are unable to handle this dialog not is it clear what is causing this dialog to popup.
  • IElement doesn't support WaitUntil methods yet.