Explore Playwright

[pl-aknight]

Playwright has a C# implementation. Perhaps we should add Screenplay interactions for it. I heard it's much faster than Selenium WebDriver.

https://playwright.dev/
https://github.com/microsoft/playwright-sharp

[pl-aknight]

Ideas for parallel testing: https://twitter.com/SabotageAndi/status/1359890598031994880?s=20

[AutomationPanda]

It looks like Playwright for .NET is entirely async. This means we'd need to make Boa Constrictor async as well. Ohhhh boy...

[thePantz]

I was exploring this a while back. Here's an ability I wrote if it's at all helpful

/// <summary>
/// Enables the Actor to use a Web browser via Playwright
/// </summary>
public class BrowseTheWebSynchronously : IAbility
{
    private IBrowserContext currentContext;
    private IPage currentPage;

    /// <summary>
    /// Private constructor.
    /// (Use the static methods for public construction.)
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="browser">The Playwright browser instance</param>
    private BrowseTheWebSynchronously(IPlaywright playwright, IBrowser browser)
    {
        Playwright = playwright;
        Browser = browser;
        Pages = new List<IPage>();
    }

    public IBrowser Browser { get; }
    public IPage CurrentPage { get; }
    public IList<IPage> Pages { get; }
    public IPlaywright Playwright { get; }

    /// <summary>
    /// Supply a pre-defined Plawright browser to use
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="playwright">The Playwright instance</param>
    /// <param name="browser">The Playwright browser instance.</param>
    /// <returns>An instance of <see cref="BrowseTheWebSynchronously"/></returns>
    public static BrowseTheWebSynchronously Using(IPlaywright playwright, IBrowser browser)
    {
        return new BrowseTheWebSynchronously(playwright, browser);
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Use a synchronous Chromium (i.e. Chrome, Edge, Opera, etc.) browser.
    /// </summary>
    /// <returns>An instance of <see cref="BrowseTheWebSynchronously"/> configured to use Chromium</returns>
    public static async Task<BrowseTheWebSynchronously> UsingChromium()
    {
        using var playwright = await Microsoft.Playwright.Playwright.CreateAsync();
        await using var browser = await playwright.Chromium.LaunchAsync();
        return new BrowseTheWebSynchronously(playwright, browser);
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Use a synchronous Firefox browser
    /// </summary>
    /// <returns>An instance of <see cref="BrowseTheWebSynchronously"/> configured to use firefox</returns>
    public static async Task<BrowseTheWebSynchronously> UsingFirefox()
    {
        using var playwright = await Microsoft.Playwright.Playwright.CreateAsync();
        await using var browser = await playwright.Firefox.LaunchAsync();
        return new BrowseTheWebSynchronously(playwright, browser);
    }
    /// <summary>
    /// Use a synchronous WebKit (i.e. Safari, etc.) browser.
    /// </summary>
    /// <returns>An instance of <see cref="BrowseTheWebSynchronously"/> configured to use Webkit</returns>
    public static async Task<BrowseTheWebSynchronously> UsingWebkit()
    {
        using var playwright = await Microsoft.Playwright.Playwright.CreateAsync();
        await using var browser = await playwright.Chromium.LaunchAsync();
        return new BrowseTheWebSynchronously(playwright, browser);
    }

    public async Task<IPage> CurrentPageAsync()
    {
        if (currentPage == null)
        {
            await using var context = await GetBrowserContextAsync();
            currentPage = await context.NewPageAsync();
        }

        return currentPage;
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Returns a description of this Ability
    /// </summary>
    /// <returns></returns>
    public override string ToString()
    {
        return $"browse the web with playwright using {Browser}";
    }

    private async Task<IBrowserContext> GetBrowserContextAsync()
    {
        if (currentContext == null)
        {
            currentContext = await Browser.NewContextAsync();
        }

        return currentContext;
    }
}

I got stuck because at the time Boa didn't have any support for async calls... but now we do! :)

[thePantz]

Credit where credit is due, I took inspiration from https://github.com/ScreenPyHQ/screenpy_playwright

[thePantz]

I made a proof of concept here:
https://github.com/thePantz/boa-constrictor/tree/feature/playwright-support/Boa.Constrictor.Playwright

[pl-shernandez]

@thePantz I'm excited about this proof of concept. What do you think the biggest challenges would be in making it have parity with the .Selenium package?

[thePantz]

@pl-shernandez there needs to be a mechanism similar to WebLocator to resolve locators and give them friendly names.

Playwright has a lot more options when it comes to locating elements compared to selenium
https://playwright.dev/dotnet/docs/locators

I'm not sure what the best approach for this would be... unlike Selenium and it's By object, the method used to locate is driven by playwrights IPage.

I was thinking something like this:

    public class PlaywrightLocator
    {
        public PlaywrightLocator(string name, Func<IPage, ILocator> locatorFunc)
        {
            Name = name;
            LocatorFunc = locatorFunc;
        }

        public string Name { get; set; }
        public Func<IPage, ILocator> LocatorFunc { get; set; }


        public static PlaywrightLocator L(string name, Func<IPage, ILocator> locatorFunc)
        {
            return new PlaywrightLocator(name, locatorFunc);
        }
    }

This would just store the friendly name and a function invoked with an IPage, that returns an ILocator.
This allows us to make simple locator properties, similar to the .Selenium package without sacrificing flexibility

 public static PlaywrightLocator SearchButton => 
    L("Search Button", page => page.GetByRole(AriaRole.Button, new PageGetByRoleOptions { Name = "search" }));

Then the locator gets resolved in the task/question

    public class Click : AbstractPageTask
    {
        private readonly PlaywrightLocator Locator;

        private Click(PlaywrightLocator locator)
        {
            Locator = locator;
        }

        public static Click On(PlaywrightLocator locator) => new Click(locator);

        public override async Task PerformAsAsync(IActor actor, IPage page)
        {
            var locator = Locator.LocatorFunc.Invoke(page);
            await locator.ClickAsync();
        }

        public override string ToString() => $"click on {Locator.Name}";

    }

This could probably be cleaned up a bit but you get the idea...
Haven't had time to test this out but it's the best I've come up with so far... Open to suggestions, I'm certainly not a playwright expert.

---

Apart from the above, I noticed that Boas Wait functions do not support async questions. This should be simple enough but is required since everything is async in Playwright...

We also need to write documentation

[bobbhatti]

has there been any progress on this? if the proof of concept usable, and if so can we clone it and build it ourselves?

[thePantz]

Hi @bobbhatti,

I've slowly been adding to my PoC. I only do this in my free time...
Maybe if Q2 wants to hire me I could make this go faster haha

Happy to accept any help/feedback others are willing to offer