There are a lot of Selenium WebDriver-based testing frameworks out there. A relatively new one is Webdriver.io. In this episode, we’ll be Test Talking about it with Kevin Lamping, author of the course Learn WebDriver.io. Kevin shares some of the pros and cons of using WebDriver.io as well as things to keep in mind when creating a WebDriver.io-based framework. So listen up and discover why WebDriver.io may be the perfect automation tool for you and your team.

About Kevin Lamping

Kevin is the author of the online video course Learn WebDriver.io. He has over 10-years experience as a Front-end Engineer. He’s released a free 6-day email course on Visual Regression Testing and runs frontendtesting.com. He has presented multiple times on Front-end Testing at various conferences. Along with that, he helps run testyourlog.in and Hill Country JS, a Front-end meetup in San Antonio. In his free time, when he’s not playing with his kids, Kevin dabbles in scale model building, tabletop gaming, piano, and gardening.

Quotes & Insights from this Test Talk

• I got into front-end testing and WebDriverIO specifically just because that’s what I needed to do my job as a front-end developer I needed a way to easily test my sites that I hate manual testing because it’s boring and repetitive and it’s just not very fun. And so that’s where I get interested in automation because even if it takes you know the same amount of time at least it’s more fun doing the programming side of things. So yeah that’s kind of my background how I got into the testing world.
  
• In the NodeJS world or in the javascript world WebDriverIO appealed to me. There are those Selenium tools out there but you know you have to learn Python or Ruby or Java and it just it’s very verbose compared to if you look at a WebDriverIO script. It is very succinct and to the point. That’s what originally got me into it. And then I’ve become even more of a fan as they’ve added feature after feature. They have a really nice plugin and service ecosystem where you can add services and plugins really easily. They have this synchronous mode now where you don’t have to worry about promises and all that. You just write it in a very clear style and they support a bunch of frameworks they have built-in support for a bunch of tools out there third-party tools out there that’s really nice.
  
• The chief benefit of WebDriverIO is it’s like that SeleniumJS binding on steroids. It is basically going to take that idea and just pump it up with a ton of features a ton of add ins and things like that to make it so much easier to get started with testing because if you’re going to write a test suite especially a UI automated test suite with selenium you’re going to want to integrate into some sort of selenium grid like SauceLabs or BrowserStack or TestingBot something that’s going to host your browsers for you you’re going to want to have some sort of reporter so you can see your tests. You’re going to want to get Mocha involved so the Selenium WebDriverJS doesn’t really come with Mocha’s support built in.
  
• I think for QA folks I think using javascript with WebDriverIO is a lot easier to pick up than Java and teach somebody who may not be familiar with programming trying to figure out Java and how that all works. It’s super complex. You’ve got all these different config XML files and classes and what do they return on that type of stuff. The wonderfulness of it is with javascript You know it’s javascript in it still while it’s advanced it still does have that easier learning curve.
  
• So I put it together a training course at learnwebdriverio.com. It has 50 videos there’s it’s split into two packages you have the starter package which is more for folks who are just kind of interested in the idea. So it goes over a lot of the basics of WebDriverIO, it gets into Page objects it gets into all the different commands that you can use in there. Things like that. I’m working on a cucumber add on bonus module for it. So that’s going to be four or five extra videos and then there’s a second half which is more if you want to use this in your professional world. Here’s what you’re going to need to know your the know how to integrate with SauceLabs. You’d know how to do use reporters and integrate with the CI/CD systems like Jenkin’s or team city or whatever. So aimed more towards less about the like how to use commands in WebDriverIO and more about how do you integrate WebDriverIO in your testing ecosystem network.
  
• As far as advice I would say when you’re first starting out try not to get too overwhelmed with everything you have to do because there’s a ton of stuff you have to do to get it working. Take it take a vertical slice of what you need. You’re going to say — where am I going to be running my test? What am I going to be running them on? When do I want to run them? Figure that out first then write one quick little test and then fill in all that all that those blanks. OK I want this test to run here. Every time that I make a code change here and I want it to run on this system. If you figure that out then you’ve got one test that does all of that. It makes it so much easier going forward.
  

Connect with Kevin Lamping

• Twitter:@klamping
• Blog: LearnWebDriverIO

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