Customization

When you are using Rsel through FitNesse, you may find yourself needing more high-level steps; it can be tedious to spell out every action using the basic actions provided by the SeleniumTest class.

It's pretty easy to create custom steps by subclassing SeleniumTest and adding your own methods to it. Create a sibling directory to your FitNesseRoot, named something like custom_rsel, then create a Ruby file in there. The Ruby file can be called whatever you want--it's most logical to name it after your application:

• FitNesseRoot
• custom_rsel
  • my_app_test.rb

Inside my_app_test.rb, you must define a module named after the folder, and a class named after the file. You'll also need to include some require statements to make sure rsel/selenium gets loaded. In this case, it should be:

require `rubygems`            # If you installed Rsel from a gem
require `rsel/selenium_test`  # Makes the SeleniumTest class available

module CustomRsel
  class MyAppTest < Rsel::SeleniumTest
    # Custom methods go here
  end
end

Inside your custom class, you can define any methods you want, and you can call any of the methods defined in the Rsel::SeleniumTest class. For example, let's say the login process for your application consists of three steps:

| Fill in | Username | with | admin   |
| Fill in | Password | with | letmein |
| Press   | Login                     |

If you're logging in a lot, you may want a single-step login method. Here's how you might define one:

module CustomRsel
  class MyAppTest < Rsel::SeleniumTest

    # Login with the given username and password
    #
    # Example:
    #   | Login as | admin | with password | letmein |
    #
    def login_as_with_password(username, password)
      fill_in_with("Username", username)
      fill_in_with("Password", password)
      press("Login")
    end

  end
end

In your FitNesse SetUp page, rather than (or in addition to) importing the Rsel module, import your custom module:

!| import    |
| CustomRsel |

Note that this name must match the module line in your Ruby file, and the folder where your Ruby file resides must be the lowercase_and_underscore version of that same module name. Finally, in your actual test table, instead of:

| script | selenium test | ... |

You'll use:

| script | my app test | ... |

This will ensure that the MyAppTest class will be used for evaluating the steps contained in that table.

It's worth noting that the SeleniumTest class (and hence any derived classes) have a @browser attribute referring to the underlying Selenium::Client::Driver instance, which includes a wealth of methods for interacting with webpages and performing verifications. If SeleniumTest itself does not provide the methods you need, you can use the @browser attribute directly.

Next: Scenarios