IT Really Matters

WatirSplash supported only Windows operating system and IE browser to perform browser based user interface testing. The reason behind that restriction was the usage of Watir framework, which by design is Windows-specific and controls Internet Explorer. Using that browser to test is usually great because most of the developers (including myself) are not using IE during their development time and it is also the most error-prone browser. This all means that it’s good to run your tests with the IE since it has the highest probability to find some bugs during the creation of the tests and in the future.

Gimme More!

Starting from WatirSplash version 1.1.0 it is now possible to run tests in Linux and OS X by using Firefox and Chrome browsers. This functionality is provided by using other frameworks in addition to Watir itself - FireWatir and Watir-WebDriver. WatirSplash allows easy switching between the frameworks and browsers.

Switching the Frameworks

It is possible to switch the framework by using environment variable or by just specifying the framework in the code.

All possible values for different frameworks and browsers are currently the following:

• watir
• firewatir
• watir-webdriver/ie
• watir-webdriver/firefox
• watir-webdriver/chrome

Use environment variable called WATIRSPLASH_FRAMEWORK to specify the current framework:

This makes your WatirSplash project tests to use Watir-WebDriver framework with Firefox browser. Pretty straight-forward.

As written above then it is also possible to specify the used framework directly in the code. It is meant to be done in your config.rb file under the ui-test and/or ui-test-common directories. If you specify it in the ui-test-common directory then the ui-test directory has higher precedence and framework specified there will be used. On the other hand if you don’t have any frameworks specified in the ui-test directory then the framework specified in the ui-test-common directory will be used. The framework to be used can be specified like this:

This statement makes WatirSplash to use FireWatir framework with Firefox browser (obviously).

Framework specified by environment variable has always the highest precedence, then comes the ui-test’s and ui-test-common’s config.rb, in that order.

Default Frameworks

This additional functionality in WatirSplash is fully backwards compatible. If the framework is not specified anywhere then the default framework will be used. The default framework depends of the platform where the tests are ran. The default framework in Windows is Watir and in Linux/OS X it is FireWatir.

Possible Dangers

You have to keep in mind that switching the frameworks could cause some problems when running the tests due to the different incompatibilities between the frameworks. Watir and FireWatir, for example, are not 100% compatible with each other. Same goes for Watir and Watir-WebDriver. Also, i’d not consider Watir-WebDriver’s IE and Chrome drivers stable yet. The only driver i’d recommend to use from Watir-WebDriver would be Firefox’s.

Conclusion

There you have it - a quite flexible solution for all your browser testing needs. Just have some things in your mind while switching the frameworks and you’re good to go. There will be probably more supported frameworks added to WatirSplash in the future. Just keep an eye on the changelog.