FireWatir

FireWatir

In one of the project that I was engaged in, the software needed to be tested on multiple browsers like IE, Firefox, Safari, etc. We were using Watir that had limitations as it supported only IE. So we decided to create a version of Watir that supports the scripts written for IE to run on Firefox as well. That’s when the idea of FireWatir came into picture.

FireWatir is port of test automation tool called Watir for Firefox browser. It provides same API's for running Watir scripts on Firefox without any changes. It uses JSSh i.e. Javascript shell to drive the firefox browser. (http://wiki.openqa.org/display/WTR/FireWatir+JSSh+Information) 

What problems FireWatir solves in Automation?

• Object Identification: FireWatir provides you with sufficient ways to identify or locate the element on the page. Lot of new websites are using Third party tools like Telerik, Infragistics etc, where you don't have much controls over the ID's and names of the control. It provides an excellent way of identifying element using "XPATH" which is not provided in any other tool. Following are couple of ways to identify element:
  • ID
  • Name
  • Class
  • XPath
  • Any other unique attribute
    
• Re-structuring of Page: Most of the scripts which are generated by record-play method tends to break whenever the page structure changes or page gets re-structured. We have faced this problem in one of our projects using Test Complete 7. As FireWatir uniquely identifies the element on the page, the script will not break if the position of the element changes on the page.
• Power of using Object Oriented Language: As Firewatir is written using Ruby language, we can take all the advantages of the language. We can use lot of libraries with the scripts which are written using Ruby. Most of other commercial tools have their own scripting language which limits the things you can do with the script. For example, you can integrate library called "Log4r"which is used for logging purposes.
• Run Test by Minimizing Browser: FireWatir drives the browser and does not treat it like any other Window application. So, you can run your tests with browser minimized and keep doing other stuff. But with other tools you have to keep your browser as active window.

Compatibility

It is compatible with Firefox 1.5 and above and works on Windows, Mac, Linux platforms.
For more information on installation & troubleshooting, go through the following link.
http://wiki.openqa.org/display/WTR/FireWatir

You can listen to the podcast of my interview with the Watir team on: http://watirpodcast.com/27-angrez-singh-on-firewatir/

Comparison of Watir with other test automation tools:
http://wiki.openqa.org/display/WTR/Comparison+of+Watir+with+Silk+Test