Supported operations in Real Browser testcases
Web Performance Consulting
It is our goal, with the real-browser capabilities of Load Tester, to make it easy to test everything you can do in an standards-compliant HTML/JavaScript web application using a browser (see a list of supported browsers).
Fully supported operations
These operations are supported in the UI for all HTML/JavaScript web applications.:
- Go to a URL
- Click on a page element (links, buttons, etc)
- Type text into an element
- Move the mouse to an element
- Press the forward and back buttons
- Respond to a JavaScript alert dialog
Partially supported operations
There are some operations that we do not yet support in the UI, but can still be accomplished using our support for scripted steps. This provides the ability to write a bit of JavaScript in the testcase with direct access to the virtual user’s state and the WebDriver/Selenium APIs. With this capability, Load Tester supports these operations on pages:
- Press button with ENTER key – This operation will not be recorded correctly nor will it work when configured in the UI. However, it can be performed in a scripted step.
- Validation – currently can only configure validation in the UI to verify that an element on the page is present/visible/click-able. Nearly any validation is possible with a scripted step.
- Drag & Drop – will need to use the Selenium/WebDriver APIs from our scripted step.
- Audio/Video streaming – Operations that work in stock Chrome without any plugins can be tested. However, Load Tester cannot (yet) collect any data about the video stream that would indicate if the video is (1) playing fine, (2) playing with interruptions or (3) stalled.
- IFrames – Load Tester can switch to an IFrame in a page and descendents of that IFrame and it can switch back to the default frame.
- File Upload – File upload operations that use the standard HTML elements can be automated.
Unsupported operations
- Looping (for/while) – We are eager to implement this, but it’s not there, yet. You can do a lot in a scripted step, but it will be a bit cumbersome. Feedback from customers will determine the priority.
- Conditionals (if/else) – see above
- Click an image map – WebDriver/Selenium does not support clicking on image maps. When it does, Load Tester will support it very soon after.
- Native browser menus, dialogs, browser extensions and plugins – This includes embedded controls such as Flash, Silverlight and Java Applets. We do not envision supporting these non-standard frameworks in the foreseeable future. If the operation involves interacting with something other than the DOM of the web page, it is unlikely to be supported.
- File Upload- Because native dialogs cannot be controlled (see above) a javascript-based file uploader that invokes a native file chooser dialog cannot be automated.
- File Download – priority undetermined