Getting Started with PhantomJS

Harness the strength and capabilities of PhantomJS to interact with the web and perform website testing with a headless browser based on WebKit

Overview

• Writing scripts that can interact directly with web services and pages
• Interacting with social media websites using PhantomJS scripts
• Creating web-based test scripts and running them in a headless browser

In Detail

PhantomJS is a headless WebKit browser with JavaScript API that allows you to create new ways to automate web testing. PhantomJS is currently being used by a large number of users to help them integrate headless web testing into their development processes. It also gives you developers a new framework to create web-based applications, from simple web manipulation to performance measurement and monitoring.

A step step-by by-step guide that will help you develop new tools for solving web and testing problems in an effective and quick way. The book will teach you how to use and maximize PhantomJS to develop new tools for web scrapping, web performance measurement and monitoring, and headless web testing. This book will help you understand PhantomJS’ scripting API capabilities and strengths.

This book starts by looking at PhantomJS’ JavaScript API, features, and basic execution of scripts. Throughout the book, you will learn details to help you write scripts to manipulate web documents and fully create a web scrapping tool.

Through its practical approach, this book strives to teach you by example, where each chapter focuses on the common and practical usage of PhantomJS, and how to extract meaningful information from the web and other services.

By the end of the book, you will have acquired the skills to enable you to use PhantomJS for web testing, as well as learning the basics of Jasmine, and how it can be used with PhantomJS.

What you will learn from this book

• Explore the possibilities of PhantomJS development and make use of a headless browser
• Understand PhantomJS’ core features and API
• Manipulate the DOM properties of web pages using scripts
• Interact with web pages using PhantomJS scripts
• Learn how to emulate keyboards and mouse actions
• Work with geolocation services with PhantomJS
• Build scripts that will create web sites snapshots
• Create and implement PhantomJS custom modules
• Use PhantomJS to perform headless testing with Jasmine

Approach

A standard tutorial approach, as a complete guide detailing the major aspects of PhantomJS with particular focus on website testing.

Who this book is written for

If you are a JavaScript developers who is interested in developing applications that interact with various web services, using a headless browser, then this book is ideal for you. This book will also be good for you if you are planning to create a headless browser testing for your web application. Basic understanding of JavaScript is assumed.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Getting Started
Chapter 2: Manipulating Page Content
Chapter 3: Handling Events and Callbacks
Chapter 4: Capturing Errors
Chapter 5: Grabbing Pages
Chapter 6: Accessing Location-based Services
Chapter 7: Working with Files
Chapter 8: Cookies
Chapter 9: External JavaScript
Chapter 10: Testing with PhantomJS
Chapter 11: Maximizing PhantomJS