A Page Object Model DSL for Capybara
SitePrism gives you a simple, clean and semantic DSL for describing your site using the Page Object Model pattern, for use with Capybara in automated acceptance testing.
Find the pretty documentation here: http://rdoc.info/gems/site_prism/frames
Here's an overview of how SitePrism is designed to be used:
# define our site's pages
class Home < SitePrism::Page
set_url "/index.htm"
set_url_matcher /google.com\/?/
element :search_field, "input[name='q']"
element :search_button, "button[name='btnK']"
elements :footer_links, "#footer a"
section :menu, MenuSection, "#gbx3"
end
class SearchResults < SitePrism::Page
set_url_matcher /google.com\/results\?.*/
section :menu, MenuSection, "#gbx3"
sections :search_results, SearchResultSection, "#results li"
def search_result_links
search_results.map {|sr| sr.title['href']}
end
end
# define sections used on multiple pages or multiple times on one page
class MenuSection < SitePrism::Section
element :search, "a.search"
element :images, "a.image-search"
element :maps, "a.map-search"
end
class SearchResultSection < SitePrism::Section
element :title, "a.title"
element :blurb, "span.result-decription"
end
# now for some tests
When /^I navigate to the google home page$/ do
@home = Home.new
@home.load
end
Then /^the home page should contain the menu and the search form$/ do
@home.wait_for_menu # menu loads after a second or 2, give it time to arrive
@home.should have_menu
@home.should have_search_field
@home.should have_search_button
end
When /^I search for Sausages$/ do
@home.search_field.set "Sausages"
@home.search_button.click
end
Then /^the search results page is displayed$/ do
@results_page = SearchResults.new
@results_page.should be_displayed
end
Then /^the search results page contains 10 individual search results$/ do
@results_page.wait_for_search_results
@results_page.should have_search_results
@results_page.search_results.size.should == 10
end
Then /^the search results contain a link to the wikipedia sausages page$/ do
@results_page.search_result_links.should include "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sausage"
end
Now for the details...
To install SitePrism:
gem install site_prism
If you are using cucumber, here's what needs requiring:
require 'capybara'
require 'capybara/cucumber'
require 'selenium-webdriver'
require 'site_prism'
If you're using rspec instead, here's what needs requiring:
require 'capybara'
require 'capybara/rspec'
require 'selenium-webdriver'
require 'site_prism'
The Page Object Model is a test automation pattern that aims to create an abstraction of your site's user interface that can be used in tests. The most common way to do this is to model each page as a class, and to then use instances of those classes in your tests.
If a class represents a page then each element of the page is represented by a method that, when called, returns a reference to that element that can then be acted upon (clicked, set text value), or queried (is it enabled? visible?).
SitePrism is based around this concept, but goes further as you'll see below by also allowing modelling of repeated sections that appear on multiple pages, or many times on a page using the concept of sections.
As you might be able to guess from the name, pages are fairly central to the Page Object Model. Here's how SitePrism models them:
The simplest page is one that has nothing defined in it. Here's an example of how to begin modelling a home page:
class Home < SitePrism::Page
end
The above has nothing useful defined, only the name.
A page usually has a URL. If you want to be able to navigate to a page, you'll need to set its URL. Here's how:
class Home < SitePrism::Page
set_url "http://www.google.com"
end
If you've set Capybara's app_host
then you can set the URL as follows:
class Home < SitePrism::Page
set_url "/home.htm"
end
Note that setting a URL is optional - you only need to set a url if you want to be able to navigate directly to that page. It makes sense to set the URL for a page model of a home page or a login page, but probably not a search results page.
SitePrism uses the Addressable gem and therefore allows for parameterized URLs. Here is a simple example:
class UserProfile < SitePrism::Page
set_url "/users{/username}"
end
...and a more complex example:
class Search < SitePrism::Page
set_url "/search{?query*}"
end
See https://github.com/sporkmonger/addressable for more details on parameterized URLs.
Once the URL has been set (using set_url
), you can navigate directly
to the page using #load
:
@home_page = Home.new
@home_page.load
The #load
method takes parameters and will apply them to the URL. Using the examples above:
class UserProfile < SitePrism::Page
set_url "/users{/username}"
end
@user_profile = UserProfile.new
@user_profile.load #=> /users
@user_profile.load(username: 'bob') #=> loads /users/bob
...and...
class Search < SitePrism::Page
set_url "/search{?query*}"
end
@search = Search.new
@search.load(query: 'simple') #=> loads /search?query=simple
@search.load(query: {'color'=> 'red', 'text'=> 'blue'}) #=> loads /search?color=red&text=blue
This will tell whichever capybara driver you have configured to navigate to the URL set against that page's class.
See https://github.com/sporkmonger/addressable for more details on parameterized URLs.
Automated tests often need to verify that a particular page is
displayed. Intuitively you'd think that simply checking that the URL
defined using set_url
is the current page in the browser would be enough, but experience shows that it's
not. It is far more robust to check to see if the browser's current url
matches a regular expression. For example, though account/1
and account/2
are the same page, their URLs are different. To deal with this,
SitePrism provides the ability to set a URL matcher.
class Account < SitePrism::Page
set_url_matcher /\account\/\d+/
end
Once a URL matcher is set for a page, you can test to see if it is displayed:
@account_page = Account.new
#...
@account_page.displayed? #=> true or false
Calling #displayed?
will return true if the browser's current URL
matches the regular expression for the page and false if it doesn't. So
in the above example (account/1
and account/2
), calling
@account_page.displayed?
will return true for both examples.
SitePrism's #displayed?
predicate method allows for semantic code in
your test:
Then /^the account page is displayed$/ do
@account_page.should be_displayed
@some_other_page.should_not be_displayed
end
Another example that demonstrates why using regex instead of string comparison for URL checking is when you want to be able to run your tests across multiple environments.
class Login < SitePrism::Page
set_url "#{$test_environment}.example.com/login" #=> global var used for demonstration purposes only!!!
set_url_matcher /(?:dev|test|www)\.example\.com\/login/
end
The above example would work for dev.example.com/login
,
test.example.com/login
and www.example.com/login
; now your tests
aren't limited to one environment but can verify that they are on the
correct page regardless of the environment the tests are being executed
against.
SitePrism allows you to get the current page's URL. Here's how it's done:
class Account < SitePrism::Page
end
@account = Account.new
#...
@account.current_url #=> "http://www.example.com/account/123"
@account.current_url.should include "example.com/account/"
Getting a page's title isn't hard:
class Account < SitePrism::Page
end
@account = Account.new
#...
@account.title #=> "Welcome to Your Account"
You can easily tell if the page is secure or not by checking to see if
the current URL begins with 'https' or not. SitePrism provides the
secure?
method that will return true if the current url begins with
'https' and false if it doesn't. For example:
class Account < SitePrism::Page
end
@account = Account.new
#...
@account.secure? #=> true/false
@account.should be_secure
Pages are made up of elements (text fields, buttons, combo boxes, etc), either individual elements or groups of them. Examples of individual elements would be a search field or a company logo image; examples of element collections would be items in any sort of list, eg: menu items, images in a carousel, etc.
To interact with individual elements, they need to be defined as part of the relevant page. SitePrism makes this easy:
class Home < SitePrism::Page
element :search_field, "input[name='q']"
end
Here we're adding a search field to the Home page. The element
method
takes 2 arguments: the name of the element as a symbol, and a css selector
as a string.
The element
method will add a number of methods to instances of the
particular Page class. The first method to be added is the name of the
element. So using the following example:
class Home < SitePrism::Page
set_url "http://www.google.com"
element :search_field, "input[name='q']"
end
... the following shows how to get hold of the search field:
@home = Home.new
@home.load
@home.search_field #=> will return the capybara element found using the selector
@home.search_field.set "the search string" #=> since search_field returns a capybara element, you can use the capybara API to deal with it
@home.search_field.text #=> standard method on a capybara element; returns a string
Another method added to the Page class by the element
method is the
has_<element name>?
method. Using the same example as above:
class Home < SitePrism::Page
set_url "http://www.google.com"
element :search_field, "input[name='q']"
end
... you can test for the existence of the element on the page like this:
@home = Home.new
@home.load
@home.has_search_field? #=> returns true if it exists, false if it doesn't
...which makes for nice test code:
Then /^the search field exists$/ do
@home.should have_search_field
end
To test that an element does not exist on the page, it is not possible to just call
#should_not have_search_field
. SitePrism supplies the #has_no_<element>?
method
that should be used to test for non-existence. Using the above example:
@home = Home.new
@home.load
@home.has_no_search_field? #=> returns true if it doesn't exist, false if it does
...which makes for nice test code:
Then /^the search field exists$/ do
@home.should have_no_search_field #NB: NOT => @home.should_not_ have_search_field
end
Another method added by calling element
is the wait_for_<element_name>
method.
Calling the method will cause the test to wait for the Capybara's
default wait time for the element to exist. It is also possible to use a
custom amount of time to wait. Using the same example as above:
class Home < SitePrism::Page
set_url "http://www.google.com"
element :search_field, "input[name='q']"
end
... you can wait for the search field to exist like this:
@home = Home.new
@home.load
@home.wait_for_search_field
# or...
@home.wait_for_search_field(10) #will wait for 10 seconds for the search field to appear
Another method added by calling element
is the
wait_until_<element_name>_visible
method. Calling this method will
cause the test to wait for Capybara's default wait time for the element
to become visible (not the same as existence!). You can customise the
wait time be supplying a number of seconds to wait. Using the above
example:
@home.wait_until_search_field_visible
# or...
@home.wait_until_search_field_visible(10)
Another method added by calling element
is the
wait_until_<element_name>_invisible
method. Calling this method will
cause the test to wait for Capybara's default wait time for the element
to become invisible. You can customise the wait time be supplying a number
of seconds to wait. Using the above example:
@home.wait_until_search_field_invisible
# or...
@home.wait_until_search_field_invisible(10)
While the above examples all use CSS selectors to find elements, it is possible to use XPath expressions too. In SitePrism, everywhere that you can use a CSS selector, you can use an XPath expression. An example:
class Home < SitePrism::Page
# CSS Selector:
element :first_name, "div#signup input[name='first-name']"
#same thing as an XPath expression:
element :first_name, :xpath, "//div[@id='signup']//input[@name='first-name']"
end
Given:
class Home < SitePrism::Page
element :search_field, "input[name='q']"
end
...then the following methods are available:
@home.search_field
@home.has_search_field?
@home.has_no_search_field?
@home.wait_for_search_field
@home.wait_for_search_field(10)
@home.wait_until_search_field_visible
@home.wait_until_search_field_visible(10)
@home.wait_until_search_field_invisible
@home.wait_until_search_field_invisible(10)
Sometimes you don't want to deal with an individual element but rather
with a collection of similar elements, for example, a list of names. To
enable this, SitePrism provides the elements
method on the Page class.
Here's how it works:
class Friends < SitePrism::Page
elements :names, "ul#names li a"
end
Just like the element
method, the elements
method takes 2 arguments:
the first being the name of the elements as a symbol, the second is the
css selector that would return the array of capybara elements.
Just like the element
method, the elements
method adds a few methods
to the Page class. The first one is of the name of the element
collection which returns an array of capybara elements that match the
css selector. Using the example above:
class Friends < SitePrism::Page
elements :names, "ul#names li a"
end
You can access the element collection like this:
@friends_page = Friends.new
# ...
@friends_page.names #=> [<Capybara::Element>, <Capybara::Element>, <Capybara::Element>]
With that you can do all the normal things that are possible with arrays:
@friends_page.names.each {|name| puts name.text}
@friends_page.names.map {|name| name.text}.should == ["Alice", "Bob", "Fred"]
@friends_page.names.size.should == 3
@friends_page.should have(3).names
Just like the element
method, the elements
method adds a method to
the page that will allow you to check for the existence of the
collection, called has_<element collection name>?
. As long as there is
at least 1 element in the array, the method will return true, otherwise
false. For example, with the following page:
class Friends < SitePrism::Page
elements :names, "ul#names li a"
end
... the following method is available:
@friends_page.has_names? #=> returns true if at least one element is found using the relevant selector
...which allows for pretty test code:
Then /^there should be some names listed on the page$/ do
@friends_page.should have_names
end
Just like for an individual element, the tests can be told to wait for
the existence of the element collection. The elements
method adds a
wait_for_<element collection name>
method that will wait for
Capybara's default wait time until at least 1 element is found that
matches the selector. For example, with the following page:
class Friends < SitePrism::Page
elements :names, "ul#names li a"
end
... you can wait for the existence of a list of names like this:
@friends_page.wait_for_names
Again, you can customise the wait time by supplying a number of seconds to wait for:
@friends_page.wait_for_names(10)
Like the individual elements, calling the elements
method will create
two methods: wait_until_<elements_name>_visible
and
wait_until_<elements_name>_invisible
. Calling these methods will cause
your test to wait for the elements to become visible or invisibe. Using
the above example:
@friends_page.wait_until_names_visible
# and...
@friends_page.wait_until_names_invisible
It is possible to wait for a specific amount of time instead of using the default Capybara wait time:
@friends_page.wait_until_names_visible(5)
# and...
@friends_page.wait_until_names_invisible(7)
Throughout my time in test automation I keep getting asked to provide the
ability to check that all elements that should be on the page are on the
page. Why people would want to test this, I don't know. But if that's
what you want to do, SitePrism provides the #all_there?
method that
will return true if all mapped elements (and sections... see below) are
present in the browser, false if they're not all there.
@friends_page.all_there? #=> true/false
# and...
Then /^the friends page contains all the expected elements$/ do
@friends_page.should be_all_there
end
SitePrism allows you to model sections of a page that appear on multiple pages or that appear a number of times on a page separately from Pages. SitePrism provides the Section class for this task.
In the same way that SitePrism provides element
and elements
, it
provides section
and sections
. The first returns an instance of a
page section, the second returns an array of section instances, one for
each capybara element found by the supplied css selector. What follows
is an explanation of section
.
A section is similar to a page in that it inherits from a SitePrism class:
class MenuSection < SitePrism::Section
end
At the moment, this section does nothing.
Pages include sections that's how SitePrism works. Here's a page that
includes the above MenuSection
section:
class Home < SitePrism::Page
section :menu, MenuSection, "#gbx3"
end
The way to add a section to a page (or another section -
SitePrism allows adding sections to sections) is to call the section
method. It takes 3 arguments: the first is the name of the section as
referred to on the page (sections that appear on multiple pages can be
named differently). The second argument is the class of which an
instance will be created to represent the page section, and the third
argument is a css selector that identifies the root node of the section
on this page (note that the css selector can be different for different
pages as the whole point of sections is that they can appear in
different places on different pages).
The section
method (like the element
method) adds a few methods to
the page or section class it was called against. The first method that
is added is one that returns an instance of the section, the method name
being the first argument to the section
method. Here's an example:
# the section:
class MenuSection < SitePrism::Section
end
# the page that includes the section:
class Home < SitePrism::Page
section :menu, MenuSection, "#gbx3"
end
# the page and section in action:
@home = Home.new
@home.menu #=> <MenuSection...>
When the menu
method is called against @home
, an instance of
MenuSection
(the second argument to the section
method) is returned.
The third argument that is passed to the section
method is the css
selector that will be used to find the root element of the section; this
root node becomes the 'scope' of the section.
The following shows that though the same section can appear on multiple pages, it can take a different root node:
# define the section that appears on both pages
class MenuSection < SitePrism::Section
end
# define 2 pages, each containing the same section
class Home < SitePrism::Page
section :menu, MenuSection, "#gbx3"
end
class SearchResults < SitePrism::Page
section :menu, MenuSection, "#gbx48"
end
You can see that the MenuSection
is used in both the Home
and
SearchResults
pages, but each has slightly different root node. The
capybara element that is found by the css selector becomes the root node
for the relevant page's instance of the MenuSection
section.
This works just the same as adding elements to a page:
class MenuSection < SitePrism::Section
element :search, "a.search"
element :images, "a.image-search"
element :maps, "a.map-search"
end
Note that the css selectors used to find elements are searched for within the scope of the root element of that section. The search for the element won't be page-wide but it will only look in the section.
When the section is added to a page...
class Home < SitePrism::Page
section :menu, MenuSection, "#gbx3"
end
...then the section's elements can be accessed like this:
@home = Home.new
@home.load
@home.menu.search #=> returns a capybara element representing the link to the search page
@home.menu.search.click #=> clicks the search link in the home page menu
@home.menu.search['href'] #=> returns the value for the href attribute of the capybara element representing the search link
@home.menu.has_images? #=> returns true or false based on whether the link is present in the section on the page
@home.menu.wait_for_images #=> waits for capybara's default wait time until the element appears in the page section
...which leads to some pretty test code:
Then /^the home page menu contains a link to the various search functions$/ do
@home.menu.should have_search
@home.menu.search['href'].should include "google.com"
@home.menu.should have_images
@home.menu.should have_maps
end
It is possible to ask a section for its parent (page, or section if this section is a subsection). For example, given the following setup:
class MySubSection < SitePrism::Section
element :some_element, "abc"
end
class MySection < SitePrism::Section
section :my_subsection, MySubSection, "def"
end
class MyPage < SitePrism::Page
section :my_section, MySection, "ghi"
end
...then calling #parent
will return the following:
@my_page = MyPage.new
@my_page.load
@my_page.my_section.parent #=> returns @my_page
@my_page.my_section.my_subsection.parent #=> returns @my_section
It is possible to ask a section for the page that it belongs to. For example, given the following setup:
class MenuSection < SitePrism::Section
element :search, "a.search"
element :images, "a.image-search"
element :maps, "a.map-search"
end
class Home < SitePrism::Page
section :menu, MenuSection, "#gbx3"
end
...you can get the section's parent page:
@home = Home.new
@home.load
@home.menu.parent_page #=> returns @home
Just like elements, it is possible to test for the existence of a
section. The section
method adds a method called has_<section name>?
to the page or section it's been added to - same idea as what the
has_<element name>?
method. Given the following setup:
class MenuSection < SitePrism::Section
element :search, "a.search"
element :images, "a.image-search"
element :maps, "a.map-search"
end
class Home < SitePrism::Page
section :menu, MenuSection, "#gbx3"
end
... you can check whether the section is present on the page or not:
@home = Home.new
#...
#home.has_menu? #=> returns true or false
Again, this allows pretty test code:
@home.should have_menu
@home.should_not have_menu
Another method added to the page or section by the section
method is
wait_for_<section name>
. Similar to what element
does, this method
waits for the section to appear - the test will wait up to capybara's
default wait time until the root node of the element exists on the
page/section that our section was added to. Given the following setup:
class MenuSection < SitePrism::Section
element :search, "a.search"
element :images, "a.image-search"
element :maps, "a.map-search"
end
class Home < SitePrism::Page
section :menu, MenuSection, "#gbx3"
end
... we can wait for the menu section to appear on the page like this:
@home.wait_for_menu
@home.wait_for_menu(10) # waits for 10 seconds instead of capybara's default timeout
Like an element, it is possible to wait for a section to become visible
or invisible. Calling the section
method creates two methods on the
relevant page or section:
wait_until_<section_name>_visible
and
wait_until_<section_name>_invisible
. Using the above example, here's
how they're used:
@home = Home.new
@home.wait_until_menu_visible
# and...
@home.wait_until_menu_invisible
Again, as for an element, it is possible to give a specific amount of time to wait for visibility/invisibility of a section. Here's how:
@home = Home.new
@home.wait_until_menu_visible(5)
# and...
@home.wait_until_menu_invisible(3)
You are not limited to adding sections only to pages; you can nest sections within sections within sections within sections!
# define a page that contains an area that contains a section for both logging in and registration, then modelling each of the sub sections seperately
class Login < SitePrism::Section
element :username, "#username"
element :password, "#password"
element :sign_in, "button"
end
class Registration < SitePrism::Section
element :first_name, "#first_name"
element :last_name, "#last_name"
element :next_step, "button.next-reg-step"
end
class LoginRegistrationForm < SitePrism::Section
section :login, Login, "div.login-area"
section :registration, Registration, "div.reg-area"
end
class Home < SitePrism::Page
section :login_and_registration, LoginRegistrationForm, "div.login-registration"
end
# how to login (fatuous, but demonstrates the point):
Then /^I sign in$/ do
@home = Home.new
@home.load
@home.wait_for_login_and_registration
@home.should have_login_and_registration
@home.login_and_registration.should have_username
@home.login_and_registration.login.username.set "bob"
@home.login_and_registration.login.password.set "p4ssw0rd"
@home.login_and_registration.login.sign_in.click
end
# how to sign up:
When /^I enter my name into the home page's registration form$/ do
@home = Home.new
@home.load
@home.login_and_registration.should have_first_name
@home.login_and_registration.should have_last_name
@home.login_and_registration.first_name.set "Bob"
# ...
end
An individual section represents a discrete section of a page, but often
sections are repeated on a page, an example is a search result listing -
each listing contains a title, a url and a description of the content.
It makes sense to model this only once and then to be able to access
each instance of a search result on a page as an array of SitePrism
sections. To achieve this, SitePrism provides the sections
method that
can be called in a page or a section.
The only difference between section
and sections
is that whereas the
first returns an instance of the supplied section class, the second
returns an array containing as many instances of the section class as
there are capybara elements found by the supplied css selector. This is
better explained in code :)
Given the following setup:
class SearchResultSection < SitePrism::Section
element :title, "a.title"
element :blurb, "span.result-decription"
end
class SearchResults < SitePrism::Page
sections :search_results, SearchResultSection, "#results li"
end
... it is possible to access each of the search results:
@results_page = SearchResults.new
# ...
@results_page.search_results.each do |search_result|
puts search_result.title.text
end
... which allows for pretty tests:
Then /^there are lots of search_results$/ do
@results_page.search_results.size.should == 10
@results_page.search_results.each do |search_result|
search_result.should have_title
search_result.blurb.text.should_not be_nil
end
end
The css selector that is passed as the 3rd argument to the
sections
method ("#results li") is used to find a number of capybara
elements. Each capybara element found using the css selector is used to
create a new instance of the SearchResultSection
and becomes its root
element. So if the css selector finds 3 li
elements, calling
search_results
will return an array containing 3 instances of
SearchResultSection
, each with one of the li
elements as it's root
element.
Using the example above, it is possible to test for the existence of the
sections. As long as there is at least one section in the array, the
sections exist. The sections
method adds a has_<sections name>?
method to the page/section that our section has been added to. Given the
following example:
class SearchResultSection < SitePrism::Section
element :title, "a.title"
element :blurb, "span.result-decription"
end
class SearchResults < SitePrism::Page
sections :search_results, SearchResultSection, "#results li"
end
... here's how to test for the existence of the section:
@results_page = SearchResults.new
# ...
@results_page.has_search_results?
...which allows pretty tests:
Then /^there are search results on the page$/ do
@results.page.should have_search_results
end
The final method added by sections
to the page/section we're adding
our sections to is wait_for_<sections name>
. It will wait for
capybara's default wait time for there to be at least one instance of
the section in the array of sections. For example:
class SearchResultSection < SitePrism::Section
element :title, "a.title"
element :blurb, "span.result-decription"
end
class SearchResults < SitePrism::Page
sections :search_results, SearchResultSection, "#results li"
end
... here's how to wait for the section:
@results_page = SearchResults.new
# ...
@results_page.wait_for_search_results
@results_page.wait_for_search_results(10) #=> waits for 10 seconds instead of the default capybara timeout
SitePrism allows you to interact with iframes. An iframe is declared as
a SitePrism::Page
class, and then referenced by the page or section it
is embedded into. Like a section, it is possible to test for the
existence of the iframe, wait for it to exist as well as interact with
the page it contains.
An iframe is declared in the same way as a Page:
class MyIframe < SitePrism::Page
element :some_text_field, "input.username"
end
To expose the iframe, reference it from another page or class using the iframe
method. The iframe
method takes 3 arguments; the name by which you
would like to reference the iframe, the page class that represents the
iframe, and an ID by which you can locate the iframe. For example:
class PageContainingIframe < SitePrism::Page
iframe :my_iframe, MyIframe, "#my_iframe_id"
end
NB: An iframe can only be referenced by its ID. This is a limitation
imposed by Capybara. The third argument to the iframe
method must
contain a selector that will locate the iframe node, and the portion of
the selector that locates the iframe node must use the iframe node's ID.
Like an element or section, it is possible to test for an iframe's
existence using the auto-generated has_<iframe_name>?
method. Using
the above example, here's how it's done:
@page = PageContainingIframe.new
# ...
@page.has_my_iframe? #=> true
@page.should have_my_iframe
Like an element or section, it is possible to wait for an iframe to
exist by using the wait_for_<iframe_name>
method. For example:
@page = PageContainingIframe.new
# ...
@page.wait_for_my_iframe
Since an iframe contains a fully fledged SitePrism::Page, you are able to interact with the elements and sections defined within it. Due to capybara internals it is necessary to pass a block to the iframe instead of simply calling methods on it; the block argument is the SitePrism::Page that represents the iframe's contents. For example:
# SitePrism::Page representing the iframe
class Login < SitePrism::Page
element :username "input.username"
element :password "input.password"
end
# SitePrism::Page representing the page that contains the iframe
class Home < SitePrism::Page
set_url "http://www.example.com"
iframe, :login_area, Login, "#login_and_registration"
end
# cucumber step that performs login
When /^I log in$/ do
@home = Home.new
@home.load
@home.login_area do |frame|
#`frame` is an instance of the `Login` class
frame.username.set "admin"
frame.password.set "p4ssword"
end
end
There's a SitePrism plugin called site_prism.vcr
that lets you use
SitePrism with the VCR gem. Check it out here:
So, we've seen how to use SitePrism to put together page objects made up of pages, elements, sections and iframes. But how to organise this stuff? There are a few ways of saving yourself having to create instances of pages all over the place. Here's an example of this common problem:
@home = Home.new # <-- noise
@home.load
@home.search_field.set "Sausages"
@home.search_field.search_button.click
@results_page = SearchResults.new # <-- noise
@results_page.should have_search_result_items
The annoyance (and, later, maintenance nightmare) is having to create
@home
and @results_page
. It would be better to not have to create
instances of pages all over your tests.
The way I've dealt with this problem is to create a class containing methods that return instances of the pages. Eg:
# our pages
class Home < SitePrism::Page
#...
end
class SearchResults < SitePrism::Page
#...
end
class Maps < SitePrism::Page
#...
end
# here's the app class that represents our entire site:
class App
def home
Home.new
end
def results_page
SearchResults.new
end
def maps
Maps.new
end
end
# and here's how to use it:
#first line of the test...
Given /^I start on the home page$/ do
@app = App.new
@app.home.load
end
When /^I search for Sausages$/ do
@app.home.search_field.set "sausages"
@app.home.search_button.click
end
Then /^I am on the results page$/ do
@app.results_page.should be_displayed
end
# etc...
The only thing that needs instantiating is the App class - from then on pages don't need to be initialized, they are now returned by methods on @app. Maintenance win!