/ghostdriver

Ghost Driver is an implementation of the Remote WebDriver Wire protocol, using PhantomJS as back-end

Primary LanguageJavaScript

PLEASE NOTE

0 - IT'S NOT DONE! The only commands implemented are the one used by the examples/google_cheese/ directory

1 - It's still experimental

2 - Not ready for Production

3 - Only 13 of the >90 WireProtocol Commands implemented

4 - I released it to get people interested in contributing. Not to provide a solution: it's not ready yet!

Ghost Driver

Ghost Driver is a pure JavaScript implementation of the WebDriver Wire Protocol for PhantomJS. This aims at providing a Remote WebDriver that uses PhantomJS as back-end.

How to use it

There is plenty to do before this is usable, but if you can't wait to try PhantomJS's speed when it acts as a RemoteWebDriver Server, do the following:

  1. Start GhostDriver on a terminal:

    $> phantomjs ghostdriver/main.js
Ghost Driver running on port 8080

  2. Build and Launch the first Java-based example (Maven required):

    $> cd ghostdriver/examples/google_cheese/
$> ./mvnexec.sh
...
[INFO] Building ghostdriver 1.0
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO]
[INFO] >>> exec-maven-plugin:1.2.1:java (default-cli) @ google_cheese >>>
[INFO]
[INFO] <<< exec-maven-plugin:1.2.1:java (default-cli) @ google_cheese <<<
[INFO]
[INFO] --- exec-maven-plugin:1.2.1:java (default-cli) @ google_cheese ---
*** USING GHOSTDRIVER ***
Loading 'http://www.google.com'...
Loaded. Current URL is: 'http://www.google.co.uk/'
Finding an Element via [name='q']...
Found.
Sending keys 'Cheese!...'
Sent.
Submitting Element...
Submitted.
Page title is: Cheese! - Google Search
Time elapsed (ms): 1531
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
...

  3. Enjoy

For a quick speed comparison with other WebDriver implementations, try passing the parameter firefox or chrome to the ./mvnexec.sh script.

Reasoning: pros and cons

Pros of using an Headless browser for your Selenium testing

  • Speed
  • Speed makes development faster
  • Speed makes THE developer happier
  • Speed makes leaves more time for beer, video-games, cycling or whatever you fancy
  • ...

Cons of using an Headless browser for your Selenium testing

  • PhantomJS is not a "Real" Browser, just very very close to it
  • ...

Contributions

You can contribute testing it and reporting bugs and issues, or submitting Pull Requests. Any help is more than welcome!!!

License

TODO