[CLI] Option to install specific version of browsers

[Granitosaurus]

Right now the only way to change browser version is to manually edit the site-packages/playwright/drivers/browsers.json. Would be great if that version could be supplied to install command as a flag.

e.g.

$ python -m playwright install --chromium-version=798026
or through environment variable
$ export PLAYWRIGHT_CHROMIUM_VERSION=798026
$ python -m playwright install

[mxschmitt]

Probably related to #47

Unfortunately it's not possible to specify the revision since WebKit or Firefox are tight to the specific Playwright release, but we will allow in the future to only install a single browser. (For Chromium its not that bound but we still support only the given version).

Why do you want to install a specific version?

[Granitosaurus]

Why do you want to install a specific version?

Different versions behave differently and newer versions have many performance improvements. The current chromium version for example is a bit dated 😬

[mxschmitt]

Why do you want to install a specific version?

Different versions behave differently and newer versions have many performance improvements. The current chromium version for example is a bit dated 😬

Playwright does only support one of the latest versions of Chromium since we rely on features in the Chrome DevTools Protocol which were added especially because of Playwrights needs.

To use a different version which is a few weeks behind would probably work but does not make much sense then.

[Granitosaurus]

Playwright does only support one of the latest versions of Chromium

I think you misunderstood me. The current version that comes installed right now is 792639 where the newest one at the time of writing is:

$ curl https://www.googleapis.com/download/storage/v1/b/chromium-browser-snapshots/o/Linux_x64%2FLAST_CHANGE?alt=media                                                                                                                      
798041

That's 5402 revisions/commits behind or whatever the number implies or time-wise speaking it's over 2 weeks old as the coded release is from 2020-07-29.

Nevertheless it would be nice to have control over which version of the browser playwright automates. I've tried changing browsers.json but seems like it's only being picked up by install command and playwright's code is not picking up the change.

[pavelfeldman]

You can pass executablePath into launch and use any browser at your own risk!

[mxschmitt]

You can as Pavel outlined the executablePath. There are no plans to support custom versions and using executablePath is at your own risk.

[yejimeiming]

Unfortunately it's not possible to specify the revision since WebKit or Firefox are tight to the specific Playwright release, but we will allow in the future to only install a single browser. (For Chromium its not that bound but we still support only the given version).

Thanks for your answer, I think if I want to specify the version of chromium, maybe I can indirectly control the chromium version by specifying the playwright version.

npx playwright@1.48.1 install chromium