AngularJS Headless End to End Testing With Protractor and Selenium

The page argues for a testing split where service logic gets unit tests and the rest of the AngularJS app is covered by end to end tests against a known backend. It treats Protractor as the practical layer on top of Selenium and WebDriver, and it walks through a headless Ubuntu setup for running browser tests on a server.

Reading notes

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• End to end tests run against the front-end of a fully functional application, driving a browser through pages, JavaScript, the DOM, and form submission.
• Unit tests cover small pieces of functionality in isolation, with application data mocked as needed.
• A REST-like backend and business logic pushed into services make AngularJS code easier to unit test.
• Controllers are presented as glue between routes, directives, and services.
• End to end tests cover directives, glue controllers, and application behavior against a known backend.
• Mock server responses are described as costly to create and maintain.
• Karma and ngScenario are described as obsolete for AngularJS end to end testing.
• Selenium and WebDriver provide APIs for driving browsers and inspecting loaded pages.
• Protractor sits on top of Selenium and WebDriver to make AngularJS end to end tests easier to write.
• With an existing Selenium setup, Protractor is installed, configured, and run with test specs.
• The example Protractor config uses Jasmine, a Selenium standalone server, and an AngularJS app at a base URL.
• Protractor tests are described as promise-based and asynchronous, with expect() handling promise resolution for assertions.
• If there is no existing Selenium infrastructure, the page outlines a headless Ubuntu server setup.
• The setup includes installing Node.js from source, Xvfb, browser dependencies, Chromium, Firefox, PhantomJS, ChromeDriver, and Java.
• A Selenium standalone server is installed as a service under a selenium user with a home directory.
• The Selenium service uses the same DISPLAY value as Xvfb and adds ChromeDriver to PATH.
• A PhantomJS driver log file must be created and made writable for the selenium user.
• The page notes a known issue between Protractor and PhantomJS.
• Imagemagick is needed if snapshots are required.
• A Vagrant and Chef configuration is offered as an easier way to provision the full environment.