Best way to load parts of config from external sources and setting workspace available scripts.

[AlexMihailescu]

tl;dr:
load external code into config.js via $.getJSON/Script?
getting lo-dash loaded and running in workspace from within onLoadPage and setup?

Currently I'm trying to switch from Selenium based tests to this as the overhead seems much less and this should be much faster, however I'm trying to make the config to better suit my tests which were based around page objects but lack the understanding to do.
The first issue which I had was that that the config,js would become a pain to maintain due to various different information I need to have, so I thought that I could load parts of it by JSON or JavaScript. This I did via appending:

$.getJSON("test_assets/logins.json")
    .done(function(data){
        global.monkeytestjs.config.logins = data;
    });

in the config.js and it works fine. Is there a more appropriate way of doing this?
The larger issue I'm having is that I almost always need access to helper script functions in the workspace which use jQuery. With Selenium I just injected my own script before each test, however here I'm having trouble running such scripts in the workspace when their set in the config. For example I tried adding the following into the config,js:

fun: function(a) {
            $("#username").val(a);
        }

However when called from a test this seems to work only on the parent page, so how would I go about:

1. giving the workspace a function/library before each tests with onLoadPage
2. getting/setting a function/library and having them execute inside workspace when inside test code, more specifically from setup in a test
   e.g getting lo-dash loaded and running in workspace

Thanks for your time,
Alex

[k7n4n5t3w4rt]

Hi Alex,

I feel really bad that you've waited so long for a reply. I was hoping someone more qualified would respond but you've just got me in the end.

First of all, thanks for giving MonkeyTestJS a go. It was a while ago now so I hope the experience was fruitful. I'm wondering how far you got though, because I think that MonkeyTestJS might be a harder road for what your trying to do than some other approaches.

In particular, you say that your tests are "based around page objects". From your later question about loading scripts before each test, I'm thinking that you might be testing partial chunks of markup and associated behaviours rather than whole pages. If that's actually what you're doing, then you should probably be using QUnit directly because that's really what it's for out of the box. MonkeyTestJS is built on top of QUnit and is really just a way of applying that functionality to whole pages. There are other javascript unit testing frameworks out there that might suit your purposes even better.

The first issue which I had was that that the config,js would become a pain to maintain due to various different information I need to have, so I thought that I could load parts of it by JSON or JavaScript. This I did via appending [CODE] in the config.js and it works fine. Is there a more appropriate way of doing this?

Your approach looks fine to me.

Finally, please let me know if I've misunderstood your needs or can help in any other way. We've had a bit of a break from working on MonkeyTestJS directly, although we've been using it to test sites quite a lot. We've got a list of improvements to get started on and if you have anything for us to add to the list, please don't hold back.

Best,

Kynan