(docs): Using WebDriverIO with GNOME's Epiphany and WPE's Cog browsers

[christian-bromann]

Discussed in #11880

^{Originally posted by lauromoura December 17, 2023}
Hi, does WebdriverIO support using third-party browsers other than Chrome/Edge/Safari/Firefox? The browsers in question are based on WebKit, like Safari (e.g. GNOME's Epiphany and WPE's Cog).

I tried playing with the capabilities in the manual mode but looks like browserName must be one of these 4 (or closely related), with WebDriverIO refusing to start remote() if it's different. If I try using safari but changing other caps like binaries paths, the wrong browserName causes the capability negotiation to fail with the third-party browser service.

Before testing WebDriverIO, I've been using Selenium's python bindings, through its RemoteWebDriver classes, with the extra capabilities specific to the tested browsers like command line arguments. Does WebDriverIO have something similar to the RemoteWebDriver?

[wdio-bot]

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[Ali7040]

Assign this to me, and I will try to fix it.

[christian-bromann]

@Ali7040 any updates or questions?

[Ali7040]

@christian-bromann I am facing this problem, and because of this, I can't test other browsers.

[Ali7040]

And on WebdriverIO, we can only run driver-based browsers. For Linux browsers like GNOME and WPE's cog, there is no driver. I have searched for it, so I don't think we can run Linux browsers, and there is no documentation available for them.

[christian-bromann]

I am facing this problem, and because of this, I can't test other browsers.

Please make sure you run the recommended Node.js version for development which is v18.12.1.

For Linux browsers like GNOME and WPE's cog, there is no driver.

Are these browser based on an engine like Chromium or Gecko? Chances are that you can use these drivers then.

[Ali7040]

Please make sure you run the recommended Node.js version for development which is v18.12.1.

My node version is the same.

Are these browsers based on an engine like Chromium or Gecko? Chances are that you can use these drivers then.

GNOME Web (Epiphany) uses the WebKitGTK rendering engine, and it is not based on either Chromium or Gecko.

[christian-bromann]

GNOME Web (Epiphany) uses the WebKitGTK rendering engine

It seems there is a driver for that here: https://packages.debian.org/stable/web/webkit2gtk-driver. I would suggest to build a project like edgedriver with the same interface to help download the binaries in the same (lazyloading) way and then we can integrate it into WebdriverIO.

For WPE's Cog there is also a driver: https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/focal/en/man1/WPEWebDriver.1.html, same applies here. I don't have a Linux machine, so I won't be able to work on this but it would be awesome to have support.

[christian-bromann]

@Ali7040 let me know if you are still interested in working on this. I am happy to re-assign you.