spectron

Easily test your Electron apps using ChromeDriver and WebdriverIO.

This minor version of this library tracks the minor version of the Electron versions released. So if you are using Electron 0.33.x you would want to use a spectron dependency of ^0.33 in your package.json file.

Learn more from this presentation.

Using

npm install --save-dev spectron

Spectron works with any testing framework but the following example uses mocha:

var Application = require('spectron').Application
var assert = require('assert')

describe('application launch', function () {
  this.timeout(10000)

  beforeEach(function () {
    this.app = new Application({
      path: '/Applications/MyApp.app/Contents/MacOS/MyApp'
    })
    return this.app.start()
  })

  afterEach(function () {
    if (this.app && this.app.isRunning()) {
      return this.app.stop()
    }
  })

  it('shows an initial window', function () {
    return this.app.client.getWindowCount().then(function (count) {
      assert.equal(count, 1)
    })
  })
})

With Chai As Promised

WebdriverIO is promise-based and so it pairs really well with the Chai as Promised library that builds on top of Chai.

Using these together allows you to chain assertions together and have fewer callback blocks. See below for a simple example:

npm install --save-dev chai
npm install --save-dev chai-as-promised

var Application = require('spectron').Application
var chai = require('chai')
var chaiAsPromised = require('chai-as-promised')
var path = require('path')

chai.should()
chai.use(chaiAsPromised)

describe('application launch', function () {
  beforeEach(function () {
    this.app = new Application({
      path: '/Applications/MyApp.app/Contents/MacOS/MyApp'
    })
    return this.app.start()
  })

  beforeEach(function () {
    chaiAsPromised.transferPromiseness = this.app.client.transferPromiseness
  })

  afterEach(function () {
    if (this.app && this.app.isRunning()) {
      return this.app.stop()
    }
  })

  it('opens a window', function () {
    return this.app.client.waitUntilWindowLoaded()
      .getWindowCount().should.eventually.equal(1)
      .isWindowMinimized().should.eventually.be.false
      .isWindowDevToolsOpened().should.eventually.be.false
      .isWindowVisible().should.eventually.be.true
      .isWindowFocused().should.eventually.be.true
      .getWindowWidth().should.eventually.be.above(0)
      .getWindowHeight().should.eventually.be.above(0)
  })
})

On Travis CI

You will want to add the following to your .travis.yml file when building on Linux:

before_script:
  - "export DISPLAY=:99.0"
  - "sh -e /etc/init.d/xvfb start"
  - sleep 3 # give xvfb some time to start

Check out Spectron's .travis.yml file for a production example.

On AppVeyor

You will want to add the following to your appveyor.yml file:

os: unstable

Check out Spectron's appveyor.yml file for a production example.

Application

new Application(options)

Create a new application with the following options:

• path - String path to the application executable to launch. Required
• args - Array of arguments to pass to the executable. See here for details on the Chrome arguments.
• env - Object of additional environment variables to set in the launched application.
• host - String host name of the launched chromedriver process. Defaults to 'localhost'.
• port - Number port of the launched chromedriver process. Defaults to 9515.
• quitTimeout - Number in milliseconds to wait for application quitting. Defaults to 1000 milliseconds.
• waitTimeout - Number in milliseconds to wait for calls like waitUntilTextExists and waitUntilWindowLoaded to complete. Defaults to 5000 milliseconds.

start()

Starts the application. Returns a Promise that will be resolved when the application is ready to use. You should always wait for start to complete before running any commands.

stop()

Stops the application. Returns a Promise that will be resolved once the application has stopped.

Client Commands

Spectron uses WebdriverIO and exposes the managed client property on the created Application instances.

The full client API provided by WebdriverIO can be found here.

Several additional commands are provided specific to Electron.

All the commands return a Promise.

getArgv()

Get the argv array from the main process.

app.client.getArgv().then(function (argv) {
  console.log(argv)
})

getClipboardText()

Gets the clipboard text.

app.client.getClipboardText().then(function (clipboardText) {
  console.log(clipboardText)
})

getRepresentedFilename()

Gets the represented file name. Only supported on Mac OS X.

app.client.getRepresentedFilename().then(function (filename) {
  console.log(filename)
})

getSelectedText()

Get the selected text in the current window.

app.client.getSelectedText().then(function (selectedText) {
  console.log(selectedText)
})

getWindowCount()

Gets the number of open windows.

app.client.getWindowCount().then(function (count) {
  console.log(count)
})

getWindowBounds()

Gets the bounds of the current window. Object returned has x, y, width, and height properties.

app.client.getWindowBounds().then(function (bounds) {
  console.log(bounds.x, bounds.y, bounds.width, bounds.height)
})

getWindowHeight()

Get the height of the current window.

app.client.getWindowHeight().then(function (height) {
  console.log(height)
})

getWindowWidth()

Get the width of the current window.

app.client.getWindowWidth().then(function (width) {
  console.log(width)
})

isDocumentEdited()

Returns true if the document is edited, false otherwise. Only supported on Mac OS X.

app.client.isDocumentEdited().then(function (edited) {
  console.log(edited)
})

isWindowDevToolsOpened()

Returns whether the current window's dev tools are opened.

app.client.isWindowDevToolsOpened().then(function (devToolsOpened) {
  console.log(devToolsOpened)
})

isWindowFocused()

Returns whether the current window has focus.

app.client.isWindowFocused().then(function (focused) {
  console.log(focused)
})

isWindowFullScreen()

Returns whether the current window is in full screen mode.

app.client.isWindowFullScreen().then(function (fullScreen) {
  console.log(fullScreen)
})

isWindowLoading()

Returns whether the current window is loading.

app.client.isWindowLoading().then(function (loading) {
  console.log(loading)
})

isWindowMaximized()

Returns whether the current window is maximized.

app.client.isWindowMaximized().then(function (maximized) {
  console.log(maximized)
})

isWindowMinimized()

Returns whether the current window is minimized.

app.client.isWindowMinimized().then(function (minimized) {
  console.log(minimized)
})

isWindowVisible()

Returns whether the current window is visible.

app.client.isWindowVisible().then(function (visible) {
  console.log(visible)
})

paste()

Paste the text from the clipboard in the current window.

app.client.paste()

selectAll()

Select all the text in the current window.

app.client.selectAll()

setClipboardText(clipboardText)

Sets the clipboard text.

app.client.setClipboardText('pasta')

setDocumentEdited(edited)

Sets the document edited state. Only supported on Mac OS X.

app.client.setDocumentEdited(true)

setRepresentedFilename(filename)

Sets the represented file name. Only supported on Mac OS X.

app.client.setRepresentedFilename('/foo.js')

setWindowBounds(bounds)

Sets the window position and size. The bounds object should have x, y, height, and width keys.

app.client.setWindowBounds({x: 100, y: 200, width: 50, height: 75})

waitUntilTextExists(selector, text, [timeout])

Waits until the element matching the given selector contains the given text. Takes an optional timeout in milliseconds that defaults to 5000.

app.client.waitUntilTextExists('#message', 'Success', 10000)

waitUntilWindowLoaded([timeout])

Wait until the window is no longer loading. Takes an optional timeout in milliseconds that defaults to 5000.

app.client.waitUntilWindowLoaded(10000)

windowByIndex(index)

Focus a window using its index from the windowHandles() array.

app.client.windowByIndex(1)