watir notes

gistfile1.txt

My notes on using watir. This is from 2007 so it's a bit out of date.
The part starting with "Cheat Sheet" is cribbed from some long-forgotten web site.
Watir can be used with other browsers but this is Firefox-specific.

1. install Firefox 1.5 or higher

2. install jssh extension

3. close firefox

4. make a new profile for firefox named 'watir':
   /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin -ProfileManager

5. close firefox

6. start Firefox from the command line:
   /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin -P watir -jssh
   (or ./start-firefox-watir.csh)

7. Check if JSSh is listening on port 9997 with:
   telnet localhost 9997

8. install firewatir ruby gem:
   sudo gem install firewatir-1.1.gem

9. in /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/firewatir-1.1/unittests do:
   ruby mozilla_all_tests.rb
   (but do make sure firefox has already been started manually as above)
   (this is hanging up atm on my machine)

10. if "attach_new_browser" test fails:
   a. make sure that pop ups are allowed in Firefox. To allow the pop up
      run this test alone and then allow the pop ups
   b. make sure that Firefox settings should be open new window instead
      of new tab when link is clicked

11. to get back to normal Firefox:
   ./start-firefox-normal.csh

12. play with it by hand:

$ irb
irb(main):001:0> require 'rubygems'
=> true
irb(main):002:0> require 'firewatir'
=> true
irb(main):003:0> include FireWatir
=> Object
irb(main):004:0> ff=Firefox.new
=> #
irb(main):005:0> ff.goto("http://mail.yahoo.com")

Cheat Sheet
===========

Basics
------

Load the Watir library

require 'watir'
some sites also say the following. may depend on platform:
include Watir

Open Internet Explorer at the specified URL

$browser = Watir::IE.start("http://google.com")
$browser = Watir::IE.start "http://google.com"

Attach to an existing browser, raising an exception if it isn't found

$browser = Watir::IE.attach(:url, "http://www.google.com")
$browser = Watir::IE.attach(:title, "Google")

Attach to an existing browser, returning nil if it isn't found

$browser = Watir::IE.find(:title, "Google") 
$browser = Watir::IE.find(:url, "http://www.google.com")

Speed up execution (or use the "-b" command line switch)

$browser.speed = :fast

Close the browser

$browser.close

Access an Element
-----------------

Text box or text area

t = $browser.text_field(:name, "username")

Button

b = $browser.button(:value, "Click Here")

Drop down list

d = $browser.select_list(:name, "month")

Check box

c = $browser.checkbox(:name, "enabled")

Radio button

r = $browser.radio(:name, "payment type")

Form

f = $browser.form(:name, "address")
f = $browser.form(:action, "submit")

Link

l = $browser.link(:url, "http://google.com")

Table cell in a table (2nd row, 1st column)

td = $browser.table(:name, 'recent_records')[2][1]

Manipulate the Element
----------------------

Manipulate the Element

Click a button or link

b.click
l.click

Enter text in a text box

t.set("mickey mouse")
t.set "mickey mouse"

Enter multiple lines in a multi-line text box

t.set("line 1\nline2")
t.set "line 1\nline2"

Set radio button or check box

c.set
r.set

Clear an element

t.clear
c.clear
r.clear

Select an option in a drop down list

d.select("Hey!")
d.select "Hey!"

Clear a drop down list

d.clearSelection

Submit a form

f.submit

Flash any element (useful from the watir-console)

e.flash

Check the Contents
------------------

Return the html of the page or any element

$browser.html
e.html

Return the text of the page or any element

$browser.text
e.text

Return the title of the document

$browser.title

Return true if the specified text appears on the page

$browser.text.include? 'llama'

Return the contents of a table as an array

$browser.table(:id, 'recent_records').to_a


Use XPath to Select Elements
----------------------------

Click the button with an image called 7.jpg

browser.button(:xpath, "//img[@src='7.jpg']/input").click()

Click on an area that links to signup.html

browser.element_by_xpath("//area[contains(@href , 'signup.htm')]").click()

Select based on the name (foo) and value (bar) of a non-standard
attribute, e.g. <select foo="bar">

element = browser.select(:xpath, "//select[@foo='bar']")

For xpath help, install XPather from:
http://xpath.alephzarro.com/index

or the .xpi for version 1.3 is in this directory.