Raptor! My new tool for Web Automation

Automation testing is a software testing technique to test and compare the actual outcome with the expected outcome. This can be achieved by writing test scripts by using any automation testing tool.

Sometimes, it is difficult for testers to be proficient in automation testing without any programming skills. Though it is not required today that you code your automated scripts with scriptless test automation, it is good to know the basics. But over the time, we have matured testing tools in the market to simplify the process of testing.

Journey to automate

Test automation is used to automate repetitive tasks and other testing tasks which are difficult to perform manually.

Testing the same functionality again and again in every release manually is not a smart decision however, skipping this part is also very risky so experts suggests to automate the repetitive test cases.

There are multiple test frameworks available in the market which are quite effective in the areas they are build for. However, there are challenges of knowing the technology and the language in order to set up. Like for example, Cucumber with Java or javascript will force you to learn the language and invest time on it instead of thinking of use case to write test scripts. That is why I was looking for something very simple for testers to perform end to end testing.

Raptor

When I did not find any framework of such intensity and simplicity on internet then I decided to create one myself. I paired up with one of the developer and together we created our own Testing framework that we gave the name as “Raptor”.

Raptor is a light weight test framework for writing end to end test cases which behaves like a robot and mimics the user behavior to complete the flow. It is highly suitable for testing applications with web components having shadow DOM which most of the present test frameworks are unable to test or difficult to test.

Raptor is a simple, configurable and zero code framework. It offers a way to write end to end test scripts that anyone can understand, regardless of their technical knowledge.

Raptor composition

Raptor consists of four different blocks:

1. JSON: Used for writing configurable test scripts
2. Java: Used for reading these test scripts
3. Selenium WebDriver: Used for initiating browser testing
4. Javascript: Used for finding and executing commands on shadow DOM

Raptor with selenium grid

Note: Above points are just for the reference, you only have to write test scripts in JSON. See the example below:

Raptor test-script

Raptor reporting

Raptor-report

Advantages

1. Ease of test creation
2. Faster debugging
3. Highly configurable
4. Steps based test cases
5. Inbuilt reporting
6. Optional steps are handled

Disadvantages

1. Basic reporting
2. Duplicate steps in different scripts

Conclusion

End-to-end testing is a technique used to test whether the flow of an application right from start to finish is behaving as expected. It is nothing but a journey of few clicks, some inputs, navigations and some expected values. So, automation testing is not that difficult for testers as we thought. In general, with the wise testing strategy and a proper supporting tool collection, Test Execution or Automation Testing is no longer a big deal.