Creating and using page objects

Alister Scott blogged about an idea for creating a factory to create instances of page objects. In the past I have blogged about page objects returning page objects. After a lot of contemplation, I am completely in the Alister camp. page-object now supports this approach as well.

PageFactory

A module named PageFactory provides this ability. This module has two methods.

  def visit(page_class, params={:using_params => {}}, &block)
  def on(page_class, params={:using_params => {}}, visit=false, &block)

Let's take a look at how you would use these method in your cucumber scripts.

    Given /^I am on the registration page$/ do
      visit RegistrationPage
    end

This call will cause the browser to open the page specified by the call to page_url in the class.

class RegistrationPage
  include PageObject

  page_url "http://mysite.com/registration"
  ...
end

If you wish to perform some activity on that page when you navigate to it you can pass a block to the method.

    When /^I register on the registration page$/ do
      visit RegistrationPage do |page|
        page.register_user
        page.do_something_else
      end
    end

If you are already on a page and wish to interact with it you can use the on_page method.

    Then /^I should be able to cancel my order$/ do
      on CheckoutPage do |page|
        page.cancel_order
        page.do_something_else
      end
    end

Both methods also support a shortened version to do only one item on the page.

    Then /^I should be able to cancel my order$/ do
      on(CheckoutPage).cancel_order
    end

If you wish to interact with the current page conditionally, you can use the 'if_page' method.

    Then /^I should be able to view my cart$/ do
      @current_page.check_nav_cart_exists
      if_page CheckoutPage do |page|
        #enters iff @current_page is of Page CheckoutPage
        page.check_product_list_exists
        page.do_something_else
      end
    end

Note: You need some plumbing in your env.rb file under hooks to make these methods available to use

require 'page-object/page_factory'
World(PageObject::PageFactory)

You will also need to make available an '@browser' variable for the driver you wish to use.