Javascript

Enhancing Your Playwright Workflow: A Guide to the VSCode Extension

Published Sep 6, 2024

Updated Sep 6, 2024

5 min read

Introduction

In my last post, Quick Guide to Playwright Fixtures: Enhancing Your Tests, I delved into some of the enhancements we've been implementing in our end-to-end (E2E) tests using Playwright. As I refine our testing strategies, I've come across a tool that has quickly become an essential part of my workflow: the Playwright VSCode extension.

If you're like me and constantly looking for ways to streamline testing and debugging, you'll appreciate any tool that can make the process more efficient and enjoyable. That's where this extension comes in. It's not just about writing tests - it's about enhancing the entire development experience. In this post, I'll walk you through getting started with the Playwright VSCode extension, sharing some tips and tricks that have made a real difference in my day-to-day work.

Installing the Extension & Basic Setup

Before diving into the Playwright VSCode extension, it's essential to have Playwright installed on your machine. If you haven't done so already, you can quickly install it by running:

npx playwright install

This command will set up Playwright and ensure all necessary dependencies are installed.

Once Playwright is ready, the VSCode extension will be installed next. Open Visual Studio Code, navigate to the Extensions view by clicking on the Extensions icon in the Activity Bar on the side of the window, and search for “Playwright”. The official extension, ID: ms-playwright.playwright / named: “Playwright Test for VSCode” by Microsoft, should appear at the top of the list. Click "Install," and you're all set.

With the extension installed, you can start leveraging its powerful features to enhance your Playwright testing workflow within VSCode.

Running the Tests and Identifying Outputs

To run a test, simply open the test file in VSCode. The Playwright extension will automatically detect test files and display a "Run" icon next to each test and test suite. You can click on this icon to run individual tests or test suites.

Alternatively, you can run all the tests in your project using the Playwright Test Explorer, accessible from the sidebar.

Once you start running your tests, the extension provides real-time feedback within the editor. You'll see the status of each test - whether it passes, fails, or is skipped - right next to the corresponding test in your code. This immediate feedback loop is incredibly helpful for catching issues as you write your tests.

The output of your tests will be displayed in the VSCode terminal. You'll see detailed information about each test run.

Debugging Step-by-Step

I find debugging particularly useful when a test fails unexpectedly or when I want to verify that certain actions are being performed as intended. Instead of guessing what might be wrong, I can see exactly what's going on in each test step, making debugging a much more straightforward and less frustrating process.

To start debugging, you can easily set a breakpoint in your test file by clicking on the left margin next to the line number where you'd like the execution to pause. Once your breakpoints are in place, you can initiate the debug process by selecting the "Debug" option next to the test you'd like to investigate.

Once the debugger is running, the extension allows you to step through your code, inspect variables, and evaluate expressions - all within VSCode. This real-time insight into your test execution is a game-changer, enabling you to pinpoint issues more effectively and confidently refine your tests.

Using the Pick Locator Tool

Another handy feature is the "Pick Locator" tool. If you've ever struggled with selecting the right element in your tests, this tool can be a time saver. It helps you generate reliable locators by letting you interact directly with the webpage elements you want to target.

To use the Pick Locator tool, click the "Pick Locator" button in the Playwright Test Explorer. This will open a new window where you can navigate to the site you're testing. As you hover over elements on the page, the tool will suggest locators, allowing you to select the most appropriate one for your test.

While the Pick Locator tool is handy, it’s important to ensure that the locators you generate are robust and maintainable. This is especially true when integrating them with the fixtures I discussed in my previous blog post. Combining the proper locators with well-designed fixtures can create more reliable and reusable test setups, ultimately making your E2E tests more efficient.

Conclusion

The Playwright VSCode extension has quickly become indispensable in my development workflow. It significantly enhanced my experience of writing and running Playwright tests.

Whether you’re just starting with Playwright or looking to optimize your existing tests, this extension offers a range of features that can save you time and effort. Combining these tools with thoughtful test design, such as leveraging fixtures, you can create a more efficient and effective testing process.

I hope this guide has given you a good overview of what the Playwright VSCode extension can do and how it can benefit your work. If you haven’t tried it yet, I highly recommend giving it a go. And as always, feel free to explore further and experiment with the features that best suit your needs.

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About the author(s)

William Mimura
@mimurawil

What is Cypress Studio?

Introduction Cypress Studio has been around for some time. It was introduced in Cypress v6.3.0, removed in v10, and reintroduced in v10.7.0. This blog post will dive into its current state and how to use it today. What is Cypress Studio Cypress Studio is a tool built on top of Cypress. It offers an interface for creating tests as if you were using your site without requiring code to be written. It adds functionality to query elements and to add assertions from the interface. It's important to note that Cypress Studio is still under an experimental flag and lacks support for Component Testing (another feature of Cypress). Creating an app to test We first need a working app because the tool we will use is meant for end-to-end tests. I'll pick Svelte and Vite for this demo, but you can choose any framework. Cypress is agnostic in that matter. ` Make sure to select the Svelte and Typescript options to follow along. Now open your project location, install dependencies, and start your app to ensure everything works correctly. ` Installing and setting up Cypress Studio Now it's time to add Cypress to our dev dependencies. ` With our dependency installed, let's launch it so we can start configuring it. But first let’s add an entry under scripts in our package.json file. ` ` A new window will open that will guide us through the initial setup. Select the "E2E Testing" option to create the required configuration files. Then, you can close the window. A new folder called cypress and a configuration file cypress.config.ts are created at the root of our project. To enable Cypress Studio, we must open the newly created configuration file and add the experimentalStudio property. ` For this project, we need to ensure that TypeScript is configured properly for Cypress when it runs, as it conflicts with the one in our root folder. We will extend the original typescript configuration and override some properties. Create a new tsconfig.json file inside the' cypress' folder. ` You can find more information on setting up TypeScript with Cypress in their documentation Creating tests Now that our setup is complete let's write our first test. We will create a folder called e2e and a new test file. ` Open the new file and create an outline of your tests. Don't add anything to them. I initialized my file with a few tests. ` There is an option to create spec files from the interface, but it will contain some initial content that you most likely remove. There’s third option to scaffold multiple specs files, these can serve as a learning resource for writing tests as it contains many different scenarios tested. Make sure your app is running and, in another terminal, start cypress. ` Select E2E testing and Chrome. You should now see a list with all your test files. Click on home.cy.ts. Your tests will run and pass because we have not made any assertions. This looks the same as if we haven't enabled Studio, but there's a new detail added when you hover on any of the tests: a magic wand that you can click to start recording events and adding assertions directly in the UI. Let's start with our first tests and check what assertions we can make. The first step is to navigate to a page. This interaction will be recorded and added to the test. To make assertions, right-click on an element and select the ones you want to add. After we complete our test, let's review our generated code. Go to the test file and see the changes made to it. It should look something like this. ` Cypress Studio will attempt to pick the best selector for the element. In this case, it was able to choose button because it is unique to the page. If there were more buttons, the selector would've been different. You can interact with elements as if you were using the page regularly. Note that Studio supports a limited set of commands: check, click, select, type, and uncheck. Let's record our second test and verify that the button will increase its count when clicked. That was quick. Let's review our generated test. ` So far, our tests have been very accurate and didn't need any modifications. However, take Studio as a helper to write tests visually and their selector as suggestions. Let's take the bottom link with the text "SvelteKit" as an example. It will generate the assertion: ` This selector is accurate, but modifying the elements' structure or order would break the tests. We don’t want tests to break for reasons that do not affect our users. A change in order does not have the same impact for the user as changing the text of a button or changing the url of a link. These selectors should be as specific as possible, but rely as less as possible on implementation details. 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May 3, 2024

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Our Journey from Cypress to Playwright for E2E Testing Introduction Adapting to unexpected technical challenges often leads to innovation. Our team faced such a moment when we discovered that our primary end-to-end (E2E) testing framework, Cypress, was incompatible with an essential component of our tech stack. This discovery led us to consider alternatives to resolve the compatibility issue and enhance our testing processes. Our choice was Playwright, a modern testing framework acclaimed for its robust features and compatibility with multiple browsers. The shift to Playwright was swift and efficient: all our E2E tests were successfully migrated within a few hours. This rapid transition highlighted our team's ability to adapt and integrate new technologies quickly. In this blog post, we will share the hands-on process we followed during the migration to Playwright, the challenges we encountered along the way, and the solutions we implemented to overcome them. Using a Test Conversion Tool We utilized a third-party test conversion tool to facilitate our migration from Cypress to Playwright, which significantly streamlined the process. Among several options available, we chose Ray's Cypress to Playwright Conversion Tool for its ease of use and effectiveness. This tool allowed us to automatically transpose our existing Cypress tests into the Playwright format. The tool processes each test script by identifying equivalent functions and commands in Playwright, translating our entire suite with minimal input. Below are some before and after images of our test scripts, demonstrating the tool's conversion capabilities. One test script written in Cypress: ` And its result converted in Playwright: ` While the tool performed impressively, converting most of our tests accurately had limitations. Certain custom helper functions and test aliases did not translate directly, and the tool clearly marked these for manual intervention. This feature was beneficial as it allowed us to quickly identify and address the segments that required our attention. Small Fixes and Fine-Tuning The initial output from the conversion tool was highly useful, yet it required some tweaks to align with Playwright's capabilities perfectly. The tool conveniently marked each unconverted function with the identifier FIXME_, making it straightforward to address these specific areas. Here’s how we tackled some of these functions: FIXME_visitWithTimeout: Originally a custom Cypress command designed to visit a URL with a specified timeout (cy.visit(url, { timeout: 30000 })), this was straightforwardly converted to Playwright's page.goto(url) FIXME_getDataCy: Another custom command (cy.get('[data-cy=""]')) was efficiently translated to Playwright’s page.locator('[data-testid=""]') FIXME_scrollTo: This native Cypress command, which scrolls the window to a specific position, proved unnecessary in Playwright. Given Playwright’s automatic detection of elements on the page, we opted to remove this command entirely ` Further refinements were made to the converted code, such as removing some "wait/delay" commands. Playwright’s robust handling of asynchronous events allowed us to streamline our tests by eliminating unnecessary pauses enhancing test execution speed and reliability. Conclusion The transition from Cypress to Playwright in our testing framework was driven by necessity but has significantly improved our testing practices. Utilizing a test conversion tool allowed us to migrate our entire suite of E2E tests efficiently, minimizing manual effort and accelerating the adoption of Playwright. Our experience highlights the importance of flexibility and the willingness to embrace new technologies in the face of unexpected challenges. The marked improvements in test execution speed and reliability, along with Playwright's advanced features, have made this transition a resounding success for our team. As we continue to refine our tests and explore the full capabilities of Playwright, we encourage other teams facing similar challenges to consider this approach. The tools and processes outlined here can serve as a roadmap for those looking to enhance their automated testing solutions....

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AI Leadership: Data-Driven Decision Making & Avoiding "Analysis Paralysis" with Jerry Reghunadh

In this episode of Leadership Exchange, host Rob Ocel chats with Jerry Reghunadh, Senior Director of Enterprise Architecture at Data Nimbus, about leadership, AI adoption, and data-driven decision-making. Jerry shares his career journey, insights on leveraging tools like ChatGPT and Copilot, and strategies for building effective data pipelines. They explore how companies can avoid "analysis paralysis," adopt AI strategically, and evaluate new technologies to solve real-world problems. Tune in for practical advice on aligning innovation with business goals and staying competitive in a rapidly evolving tech landscape. Chapters 00:00 – Introduction 00:31 – Jerry’s Leadership Journey 02:01 – Discussing AI in Leadership 03:59 – Experimenting with AI Tools 06:24 – Overcoming Analysis Paralysis 09:18 – Importance of Early AI Adoption 13:12 – AI’s Impact on Efficiency 14:30 – Sponsor Message 16:26 – Setting Realistic Goals for AI 19:41 – Data Management and AI 23:09 – Is AI Just a Fad? 27:22 – Testing New Technologies 29:56 – Final Thoughts on AI 30:25 – Connect with Jerry 30:44 – Closing Remarks 31:20 – Outro Follow Jerry on Social Media Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerrymannel/ Sponsored by This Dot: thisdot.co...

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Enhancing Your Playwright Workflow: A Guide to the VSCode Extension

Introduction

Installing the Extension & Basic Setup

Running the Tests and Identifying Outputs

Debugging Step-by-Step

Using the Pick Locator Tool

Conclusion

William Mimura

You might also like

What is Cypress Studio?

Our Journey from Cypress to Playwright for E2E Testing

Efficiently Extract Object References in Shopify Storefront GraphQL API

AI Leadership: Data-Driven Decision Making & Avoiding "Analysis Paralysis" with Jerry Reghunadh

Let's innovate together!

You might also like

What is Cypress Studio?

Our Journey from Cypress to Playwright for E2E Testing

Efficiently Extract Object References in Shopify Storefront GraphQL API

AI Leadership: Data-Driven Decision Making & Avoiding "Analysis Paralysis" with Jerry Reghunadh