Cypress Real Events

Fire native system events from Cypress

Why?

Cypress default events are simulated. That means that all events like cy.click or cy.type are fired from javascript. That's why this events will be untrusted (event.isTrusted will be false) and they can behave a little different from real native event. But for some cases it can be impossible to use native events, for example to fill a native alert or copy to clipboard.

Thanks to Chrome Devtools Protocol. Cypress is connecting to CDP for tasks like screenshots, this project is using the same connection to fire system events. It works literally like in puppeteer. And as a result unlocks such features like hovering and native focus management via Tab.

Requirements

Cypress only. Really. Cypress itself can fire native events. The only limitation for real events – they work only in the chromium based browser. That means that FireFox is not supported, at least for now.

Quick overview

Here is a simple test that can be written with native events:

it("tests real events", () => {
  cy.get("input").realClick(); // perform a native real click on the field
  cy.realType("cypress real event"); // fires native system keypress events and fills the field
  cy.realPress("Tab"); // native tab click switches the focus
  cy.focused().realHover(); // hovers over the new focused element
  cy.contains("some text in the hovered popover");
});

Installation

Install npm package:

npm install cypress-real-events

yarn add cypress-real-events

Register new commands by adding this to your cypress/support/index.{js,ts} file.

import "cypress-real-events/support";

If you are using typescript, also add the following to cypress/tsconfig.json

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "types": ["cypress", "cypress-real-events"]
  }
}

Api

The idea of the commands – they should be as similar as possible to cypress default commands (like cy.type), but starts with real – cy.realType.

Here is an overview of the available real event commands:

• cy.realClick
• cy.realHover
• cy.realPress
• cy.realType

cy.realClick

Fires native system click event.

cy.get("button").realClick();
cy.get("button").realClick(options);

Example:

cy.get("button").realClick({ position: "topLeft" }) // click on the top left corner of button
cy.get("body").realClick({ x: 100, y: 1240 }) // click by the x & y coordinates relative to the whole window

Options:

• Optional button: "none" | "left" | "right" | "middle" | "back" | "forward"
• Optional pointer: "mouse" | "pen"
• Optional x coordinate to click x: number
• Optional y coordinate to click y: number
• Optional position: "topLeft" | "top" | "topRight" | "left" | "center" | "right" | "bottomLeft" | "bottom" | "bottomRight"

Make sure that x and y has bigger priority than position.

cy.realHover

Fires real native hover event. Yes, it can test :hover preprocessor.

cy.get("button").hover();
cy.get("button").hover(options);

Options:

• Optional pointer: "mouse" | "pen"
• Optional position: "topLeft" | "top" | "topRight" | "left" | "center" | "right" | "bottomLeft" | "bottom" | "bottomRight"

cy.realPress

Fires native press event. Make sure that press event is global. It means that it is not attached to any field or control. In order to fill the input it is possible to do

cy.realPress("Tab"); // switch the focus for a11y testing

Usage

cy.realPress(key);
cy.realPress(key, options);

Parameters:

Name	Type	Default value	Description
key	string	-	key to type. Should be the same as cypress's type command argument. All the keys available here.
options	- Optional pointer: "mouse" | "pen"	{}

cy.realType

Runs a sequence of native press events (via cy.realPress). This can be used to simulate real typing. Make sure that type event is global. This means that it is not attached to any field.

cy.realType("type any text"); // type any text on the page

cy.get("input").focus();
cy.realType("some text {enter}"); // type into focused field

Usage:

cy.realType(text);
cy.realType(text, options);

Parameters:

Name	Type	Default value	Description
text	string	-	text to type. Should be around the same as cypress's type command argument (https://docs.cypress.io/api/commands/type.html#Arguments)
options	Options	{}

Options:

• Optional delay: undefined | number default 30
• Optional log: undefined | false | true default true
• Optional pressDelay: undefined | number default 10

UX

One problem of the real native system events I need to mention – you will not get an error message if event wasn't produced. Similar to selenium or playwright – if a javascript event was not fired you will not get a comprehensive error message.

So probably this package should not be used as a replacement of the cypress events, at least for the writing tests experience 🐨

License

The project is licensed under the terms of MIT license