Show HN: Helium - Simple web automation • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Helium - Simple web automation

#11

Post by mherrmann » Mon, Dec 16, 2013, 1:14 PM UTC

lfx wrote: post #7

Hey, looks nice. Wonder how lib is detecting inputs by "user-visible labels". Looks by html structure, or uses some "magic" methods?

Thanks! For now, it looks by (x, y) position on the web page.

Re: Show HN: Helium - Simple web automation

#12

Post by mherrmann » Mon, Dec 16, 2013, 1:14 PM UTC

Taurenking wrote: post #5

this seems an iteresting project...how does the click() function work? Is it possible to automate other actions beside the ones in the example?

Sure, you can find other actions on the docs page, http://heliumhq.com/docs/api_documentation

Re: Show HN: Helium - Simple web automation

#13

Post by mherrmann » Mon, Dec 16, 2013, 1:15 PM UTC

mapleoin wrote: post #3

Closed source development tools with a EULA? What is this? 1995?

We quit our daytime jobs to work on this project and have to live off something... Maybe you have a suggestion as to what we could do to allow us to sustain our development in another way?

Re: Show HN: Helium - Simple web automation

#14

Post by briancray » Mon, Dec 16, 2013, 1:17 PM UTC

I would suggest also allowing CSS selectors as a fallback. Text changes often whereas a selector will change less often, producing a more reliable point of interaction.

I would also suggest you put a screencast of a hello world. With many people new to testing using headless webkit, they may have the wrong perception of how selenium tests are run. Additionally what may not be obvious to people used to javascript-based headless webkit tests is that Selenium/Helium tests are written in python. Might want to clarify that as well.

Good luck!

Re: Show HN: Helium - Simple web automation

#15

Post by mherrmann » Mon, Dec 16, 2013, 1:21 PM UTC

briancray wrote: post #14

I would suggest also allowing CSS selectors as a fallback. Text changes often whereas a selector will change less often, producing a more reliable point of interaction. I would also suggest you put a screencast of a hello world. With many people new to testing using headless webkit, they may have the wrong perception of how selenium tests are run. Additionally what may not be obvious to people used to javascript-base…

Hi,

thanks for the suggestions! I'll discuss them with my colleagues.

CSS selectors are supported, because Helium is fully compatible with Selenium. Eg.: You can say click(driver.find_element_by_css_class('btn')), where click(...) is a Helium command and driver.find_element_by_css_class(...) is from Selenium. Helium and Selenium are 100% interoperable.

Thanks again! :-)

Re: Show HN: Helium - Simple web automation

#16

Post by fygwtclub » Mon, Dec 16, 2013, 1:29 PM UTC

I overheard "Selenium" is the cure for "Mercury" poisoning. What's behind the name "Helium". Just curious.

I would love to use "Helium" soon. All the best for your work.

Re: Show HN: Helium - Simple web automation

#17

Post by mherrmann » Mon, Dec 16, 2013, 1:34 PM UTC

fygwtclub wrote: post #16

I overheard "Selenium" is the cure for "Mercury" poisoning. What's behind the name "Helium". Just curious. I would love to use "Helium" soon. All the best for your work.

The answer is simple: Helium is lighter than Selenium! ;-)

You can already use it today by downloading from http://heliumhq.com/download.

Thanks for the kind words!

Re: Show HN: Helium - Simple web automation

#18

Post by moconnor » Mon, Dec 16, 2013, 1:36 PM UTC

mherrmann wrote: post #13

mapleoin wrote: post #3

Closed source development tools with a EULA? What is this? 1995?

We quit our daytime jobs to work on this project and have to live off something... Maybe you have a suggestion as to what we could do to allow us to sustain our development in another way?

This is a really interesting problem. There's the expectation - and desire - for all software, particularly development tools, to be open source.

This seems to make it harder for independent developers to devote time to creating great tools. Is the future of software tools in the side-effects of teams at large organizations open sourcing things they needed to solve their own problems?

Re: Show HN: Helium - Simple web automation

#19

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Dec 16, 2013, 1:39 PM UTC

mherrmann wrote: post #17

fygwtclub wrote: post #16

I overheard "Selenium" is the cure for "Mercury" poisoning. What's behind the name "Helium". Just curious. I would love to use "Helium" soon. All the best for your work.

The answer is simple: Helium is lighter than Selenium! ;-) You can already use it today by downloading from http://heliumhq.com/download . Thanks for the kind words!

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Helium - Simple web automation

#20

Post by hpaavola » Mon, Dec 16, 2013, 1:47 PM UTC

mherrmann wrote: post #11

lfx wrote: post #7

Hey, looks nice. Wonder how lib is detecting inputs by "user-visible labels". Looks by html structure, or uses some "magic" methods?

Thanks! For now, it looks by (x, y) position on the web page.

Position of what? Why?

Given following markup:

    Lorem ipsum

Does

    write('omg', 'Lorem ipsum')

write into #foobar? Just to clarify since position of those two elements might not be similar at all.