[HN Gopher] Show HN: Headless Recorder v1.0, get Playwright/Pupp...
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Show HN: Headless Recorder v1.0, get Playwright/Puppeteer scripts
without coding
Author : ianaya89
Score : 62 points
Date : 2021-07-20 18:21 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (chrome.google.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (chrome.google.com)
| defied wrote:
| Chrome DevTools has an experimental feature since Chrome 89 which
| allows you to record Puppeteer scripts as well:
| https://developer.chrome.com/blog/new-in-devtools-89/#experi...
| tnolet wrote:
| Yeah, that is quite new and great. Playwright also has some
| recording and test playback features. This extension - which I
| co-authored - is probably still a bit easier to use. And it
| does both frameworks.
| adkadskhj wrote:
| Wow i'm going to have to try this sometime. That looks
| impressive. Anyone here try it before? How well does it work?
| Xen0byte wrote:
| I haven't used Puppeteer in a while, mostly because it's obsolete
| now that Playwright exists, but for Playwright you can do the
| exact same thing from the Playwright CLI, without having to
| install some browser extension. The main command is "playwright
| codegen". More info here: https://playwright.dev/dotnet/docs/cli
| veidr wrote:
| Does this tool improve on the codegen feature that is already
| built into Playwright?
| ianaya89 wrote:
| I can't say the generated code is better than Playwright's.
| What I think it brings a better UX and fast recording flow
| gvkhna wrote:
| Hey HN! Sorry for the shameless plug.
|
| If you're interested in no-code recording and deployment, check
| out https://Superadmin.so. We're pioneering a Visual AI for
| better change detection. And no scripts to manage!
| SeriousM wrote:
| This is not a shameless plug, it's unrelated advertisement.
| cat199 wrote:
| "Superadmin is the easiest way for teams to get setup with
| visual browser testing quickly, and orchestrate massively
| parallel tests with private infrastructure."
|
| seems pretty related to me
| rektide wrote:
| I don't know if it exists anymore or not, but Selenium used to
| have a FAQ & there was a whole bullet-point declaring how
| bad/evil/wrong/horrific it would be if the Selenese test-recorder
| (selenium's companion gui tool) could generate something
| automateable.
|
| That did not stop ~2008 me from writing a small script to
| automate playback of, iirc, the HTML table elements that encoded
| the data & ran it via SeleniumRC against a SeleniumGrid
| (sometimes we'd use all the laptop's in the office as a load
| test!!).
|
| I added some variable interpolation into the commands, and QA
| department had a field day recording activities, & using that
| output to writing & composing steps & tests.
|
| I'm still extremely salty at the weird dogmatic "gui tools are
| for human interaction!" anti-automation perspective selenium
| presented then. Today, there's an HtmlUnit WebDriver project that
| does just this, I believe. I quickly scanned the archived
| seleniumhq.org website & web.archive.org but haven't found this,
| hope I do again some day. It remains one of my earliest & most
| impressionable memories of dogmatism in software, of someone very
| loudly declaring that this thing needs to be over here & that one
| needs to be over there & never ever let them touch. Long story,
| pardon; this project here is definitely bringing back those
| memories though! Heck yes GUIs that can help script.
| spuz wrote:
| Why is it called "headless"? I understand the term when it comes
| to running automated tests, but I don't understand how it can
| claim to be "headless" when it requires a real browser window in
| order to execute?
|
| Also what benefit does the extension provide over Playwright's
| inspector tool?
| tnolet wrote:
| Both Playwright and Puppeteer can use "headless" mode, which
| actually does not spin up a full, visual window. This makes
| running in CI or other test environments very effective.
| spuz wrote:
| In that case, "headless" refers to the method those tools use
| to run their automated tests. In the case of this "Headless
| Recorder" however, it apparently runs as an extension in a
| real browser and records real human inputs which implies it
| must be running "headed". So the question still applies.
| nicoburns wrote:
| I think it requires a "head" to record. But the generated
| scripts can then be run headless.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| from the comment you're responding to:
|
| > I understand the term when it comes to running automated
| tests, but I don't understand how it can claim to be
| "headless" when it requires a real browser window in order to
| execute?
| ianaya89 wrote:
| Hey, it does not claim to be headless. Headless Recorder is
| the name we picked trying to sound as generic as possible
| in terms of tools (Puppeteer, Playwright or whatever came
| up in the future). Headless stands for the code that is
| being generated and not for the tool
| spuz wrote:
| Ok thanks. That makes a bit more sense!
| ianaya89 wrote:
| Headless Recorder 1.0 is a free and open-source Chrome extension
| that records your browser interactions and generates
| Playwright/Puppeteer scripts without coding. Easily record, copy,
| and run your script for testing, monitoring, or scraping
| pineconewarrior wrote:
| Thanks for this! I've used Headless Recorder not only as a tool
| for completing tasks, but as an educational aid in learning how
| Puppeteer/Playwright actually works. Seeing the code it spits
| out is a huge shortcut in learning to craft your own scripts.
| theptip wrote:
| Interested in folks' thoughts on how this compares vs. other
| similar tools, Cypress (with Cypress Recorder) being the main
| alternative I'm familiar with.
| wdb wrote:
| You can use popup windows, you can use webkit, you can use
| multiple tabs etc
| twalla wrote:
| I primarily work with python/golang but wanted to use Puppeteer
| to automate some tedious form-based stuff. My JS skills are
| pretty crap and Headless Recorder helped me get about 90 percent
| of what I needed in probably 10 percent of the time it would've
| taken me with trial and error.
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