dom-event-testing-library

A library for unit testing high-level interactions via simple pointer events, e.g., pointerdown, that produce realistic and complete DOM event sequences.

There are number of challenges involved in unit testing modules that work with DOM events.

1. Testing environments with and without support for the PointerEvent API.
2. Testing various user interaction modes including mouse, touch, and pen use.
3. Testing against the event sequences browsers actually produce (e.g., emulated touch and mouse events.)
4. Testing against the event properties DOM events include (i.e., more complete mock data)
5. Testing against "virtual" events produced by tools like screen-readers.

Writing unit tests to cover all these scenarios is tedious and error prone. This event testing library is designed to avoid these issues by allowing developers to more easily dispatch events in unit tests, and to more reliably test interactions while using an API based on PointerEvent.

Example

import {
  describeWithPointerEvent,
  testWithPointerType,
  clearPointers,
  createEventTarget,
  setPointerEvent,
} from 'dom-event-testing-library';

describeWithPointerEvent('useTap', hasPointerEvent => {
  beforeEach(() => {
    // basic PointerEvent mock
    setPointerEvent(hasPointerEvent);
  });

  afterEach(() => {
    // clear active pointers between test runs
    clearPointers();
  });

  // test all the pointer types supported by the environment
  testWithPointerType('pointer down', pointerType => {
    const ref = createRef(null);
    const onTapStart = jest.fn();

    // component to test
    function Component() {
      useTapEvents(ref, { onTapStart });
      return <div ref={ref} />
    }

    // render component
    act(() => {
      render(<Component />);
    });

    // create an event target
    const target = createEventTarget(ref.current);

    // dispatch high-level pointer event
    act(() => {
      target.pointerdown({ pointerType });
    });

    // assertion
    expect(onTapStart).toBeCalled();
  });
});

The example above tests the interaction in multiple scenarios. In each case, a realistic DOM event sequence–with complete mock events–is produced. When running in a mock environment without the PointerEvent API, the test runs for both mouse and touch pointer types. When touch is the pointer type it produces emulated mouse events. When running in a mock environment with the PointerEvent API, the test runs for mouse, touch, and pen pointer types.

It's important to cover all these scenarios because it's very easy to introduce bugs – e.g., double calling of callbacks – if not accounting for emulated mouse events, differences in target capturing between touch and mouse pointers, and the different semantics of button across event APIs.

Default values are provided for the expected native events properties. They can also be customized as needed in a test.

target.pointerdown({
  button: 0,
  buttons: 1,
  pageX: 10,
  pageY: 10,
  pointerType,
  // NOTE: use x,y instead of clientX,clientY
  x: 10,
  y: 10
});

Tests that dispatch multiple pointer events will dispatch multi-touch native events on the target.

// first pointer is active
target.pointerdown({pointerId: 1, pointerType});
// second pointer is active
target.pointerdown({pointerId: 2, pointerType});

API

Target and events

To create a new event target pass the DOM node to createEventTarget(node). This target can then be used to dispatch event sequences and customize the event payload. The following are currently supported:

• blur
• click
• contextmenu
• focus (includes the complete sequence of focus-related events)
• keydown
• keyup
• pointercancel
• pointerdown
• pointerhover (moves when pointer is not down)
• pointermove (moves when pointer is down)
• pointerover
• pointerout
• scroll
• select
• selectionchange
• tap (equivalent to pointerdown followed by pointerup)
• virtualclick

The target also has node property equal to the node that was used to create the target, and a setBoundClientRect({x,y,width,height}) method that can be used to mock the return value of getBoundingClientRect.

Jest helpers

describeWithPointerEvent

This is just like describe but it will run the entire test suite twice, once in an environment with PointerEvent mocked and once without.

describeWithPointerEvent('useTap', hasPointerEvent => {
  // test suite
});

testWithPointerType

The is just like test but it will run the test for every pointer type supported by the environment. When PointerEvent is mocked, the pointer types will be mouse, touch, and pen; otherwise the pointer types will be mouse and touch.

testWithPointerType('pointer down', pointerType => {
  // test unit
});

jsdom environment helpers

platform

Interactions that account for Windows / macOS differences can change the platform by calling platform.set(value), where value can be either 'mac' or 'windows'. To retreive the current platform call platform.get(), and the clear it call platform.clear().

hasPointerEvent / setPointerEvent

Interactions implemented using PointerEvent can create a basic mock for jsdom by calling setPointerEvent(true) (disable with setPointerEvent(false)), and check whether PointerEvent is available by calling hasPointerEvent().