Horseman

Horseman is no longer supported

Sorry, but the maintainers just don't have the time anymore. You may want to check out puppeteer or nightmare.

Horseman lets you run PhantomJS from Node.

Horseman has:

a simple chainable (Promise based) API,
an easy-to-use control flow (see the examples),
support for multiple tabs being open at the same time,
built in jQuery for easier page manipulation,
built in bluebird for easier in-browser async.

Examples

Search on Google

var Horseman = require('node-horseman');
var horseman = new Horseman();

horseman
  .userAgent('Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:27.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/27.0')
  .open('http://www.google.com')
  .type('input[name="q"]', 'github')
  .click('[name="btnK"]')
  .keyboardEvent('keypress', 16777221)
  .waitForSelector('div.g')
  .count('div.g')
  .log() // prints out the number of results
  .close();

Save the file as google.js. Then, node google.js.

Count Twitter Followers Concurrently

const Horseman = require('node-horseman');
const users = ['PhantomJS', 'nodejs'];

users.forEach((user) => {
    const horseman = new Horseman();
    horseman
        .open(`http://twitter.com/${user}`)
        .text('.ProfileNav-item--followers .ProfileNav-value')
        .then((text) => {
            console.log(`${user}: ${text}`);
        })
        .close();
});

Save the file as twitter.js. Then, node twitter.js.

For longer examples, check out the Examples folder.

Installation

npm install node-horseman

Note: Make sure PhantomJS is available in your path, you have the phantomjs-prebuilt/phantomjs npm package installed, or use the phantomPath option.

API

Setup

new Horseman(options)

Create a new instance that can navigate around the web.

The available options are:

timeout: how long to wait for page loads or wait periods, default 5000 ms.
interval: how frequently to poll for page load state, default 50 ms.
loadImages: load all inlined images, default true.
switchToNewTab: switch to new tab when created, default false.
diskCache: enable disk cache, default false.
diskCachePath: location for the disk cache. (requires PhantomJS 2.0.0 or above)
cookiesFile: A file where to store/use cookies.
ignoreSSLErrors: ignores SSL errors, such as expired or self-signed certificate errors.
sslProtocol: sets the SSL protocol for secure connections [sslv3|sslv2|tlsv1|any], default any.
webSecurity: enables web security and forbids cross-domain XHR.
injectJquery: whether jQuery is automatically loaded into each page. Default is true. If jQuery is already present on the page, it is not injected.
injectBluebird: whether bluebird is automatically loaded into each page. Default is false. If true and Promise is already present on the page, it is not injected. If 'bluebird' it is always injected as Bluebird, whether Promise is present or not.
bluebirdDebug: whether or not to enable bluebird debug features. Default is false. If true non-minified bluebird is injected and long stack traces are enabled
proxy: specify the proxy server to use address:port, default not set.
proxyType: specify the proxy server type [http|socks5|none], default not set.
proxyAuth: specify the auth information for the proxy user:pass, default not set.
phantomPath: If PhantomJS is not installed in your path, you can use this option to specify the executable's location.
phantomOptions: Explicit PhantomJS options, e.g. {'ssl-certificates-path': 'ca.pem'}. For a complete list refer to the PhantomJS command line interface. These options have precedence over options implicitly set by Horseman.
debugPort: Enable web inspector on specified port, default not set.
debugAutorun: Autorun on launch when in debug mode, default is true.

Configuration

.setProxy(ip, [port], [type], [user, pass])

Dynamically set proxy settings (requires PhantomJS 2.0.0 or above). The ip argument can either be the IP of the proxy server, or a URI of the form type://user:pass@ip:port.

The port is optional and defaults to 80. The type is optional and defaults to 'http'. The user and pass are the optional username and password for authentication, by default no authentication is used.

Cleanup

Be sure to .close() each Horseman instance when you're done with it!

.close()

Closes the Horseman instance by shutting down PhantomJS.

Navigation

.open(url)

Load the page at url.

.post(url, postData)

POST postData to the page at url.

.put(url, putData)

PUT putData to the page at url.

.back()

Go back to the previous page.

.forward()

Go forward to the next page.

.status()

The HTTP status code returned for the page just opened.

.reload()

Refresh the current page.

.cookies([object|array of objects|string])

Without any options, this function will return all the cookies inside the browser.

horseman
  .open('http://httpbin.org/cookies')
  .cookies()
  .log() // []
  .close();

You can pass in a cookie object to add to the cookie jar.

horseman
  .cookies({
    name: 'test',
    value: 'cookie',
    domain: 'httpbin.org'
  })
  .open('http://httpbin.org/cookies')
  .cookies()
  .then(function(cookies){
    console.log(cookies);
    return horseman.close();
  });

/*
[ { domain: '.httpbin.org',
    httponly: false,
    name: 'test',
    path: '/',
    secure: false,
    value: 'cookie' } ]
*/

You can pass in an array of cookie objects to reset all the cookies in the cookie jar (or pass an empty array to remove all cookies).

horseman
  .cookies([
  {
    name : 'test2',
    value : 'cookie2',
    domain: 'httpbin.org'
  },
  {
    name : 'test3',
    value : 'cookie3',
    domain: 'httpbin.org'
  }])
  .open('http://httpbin.org/cookies')
  .cookies()
  .then(function(cookies){
    console.log(cookies.length); // 2
    return horseman.close();
  });

You can pass in the name of a cookies.txt formatted file to reset all the cookies in the cookie jar to those contained in the file.

horseman
  .cookies('my-cookies.txt')
  .open('http://httpbin.org/cookies')
  .cookies()
  .then(function(cookies){
    console.log(cookies);
    return horseman.close();
  });

  /* Cookies from my-cookies.txt (converted to the above object format) */

.userAgent(userAgent)

Set the userAgent used by PhantomJS. You have to set the userAgent before calling .open().

.headers(headers)

Set the headers used when requesting a page. The headers are a javascript object. You have to set the headers before calling .open().

.authentication(user, password)

Set the user and password for accessing a web page using basic authentication. Be sure to set it before calling .open(url).

horseman
  .authentication('myUserName', 'myPassword')
  .open('http://httpbin.org/basic-auth/myUserName/myPassword')
  .html('pre')
  .then(function(body) {
    console.log(body);
    /*
        {
        "authenticated": true,
        "user": "myUserName"
      }
    */
    return horseman.close();
  });

.viewport(width, height)

Set the width and height of the viewport, useful for screenshotting. You have to set the viewport before calling .open().

.scrollTo(top, left)

Scroll to a position on the page, relative to the top left corner of the document.

.zoom(zoomFactor)

Set the amount of zoom on a page. The default zoomFactor is 1. To zoom to 200%, use a zoomFactor of 2. Combine this with viewport to produce high DPI screenshots.

horseman
  .viewport(3200,1800)
  .zoom(2)
  .open('http://www.horsemanjs.org')
  .screenshot('big.png')
  .close();

Evaluation

Evaluation elements return information from the page.

.title()

Get the title of the current page.

.url()

Get the URL of the current page.

.visible(selector)

Determines if a selector is visible, or not, on the page. Returns a boolean.

.exists(selector)

Determines if the selector exists, or not, on the page. Returns a boolean.

.count(selector)

Counts the number of selector on the page. Returns a number.

.html([selector], [file])

Gets the HTML inside of an element. If no selector is provided, it returns the HTML of the entire page. If file is provided, the HTML will be written to that filename.

.text(selector)

Gets the text inside of an element.

.plainText()

Gets the plain text of the whole page (using PhantomJS's plainText property).

.value(selector, [val])

Get, or set, the value of an element.

.attribute(selector, attribute)

Gets an attribute of an element.

.cssProperty(selector, property)

Gets a CSS property of an element.

.width(selector)

Gets the width of an element.

.height(selector)

Gets the height of an element.

.screenshot(path)

Saves a screenshot of the current page to the specified path. Useful for debugging.

.screenshotBase64(type)

Returns a base64 encoded string representing the screenshot. Type must be one of 'PNG', 'GIF', or 'JPEG'.

.crop(area, path)

Takes a cropped screenshot of the page. area can be a string identifying an html element on the screen to crop to, or a getBoundingClientRect object.

.cropBase64(area, type)

Returns a string representing a cropped, base64 encoded screenshot of the page. area can be a string identifying an html element on the screen to crop to, or a getBoundingClientRect object. Type must be one of 'PNG', 'GIF', or 'JPEG'.

.pdf(path, [paperSize])

Renders the page as a PDF. The default paperSize is US Letter.

The paperSize object should be in either this format:

{
  width: '200px',
  height: '300px',
  margin: '0px'
}

or this format

{
  format: 'A4',
  orientation: 'portrait',
  margin: '1cm'
}

Supported formats are: A3, A4, A5, Legal, Letter, Tabloid.

Orientation (portrait, landscape) is optional and defaults to 'portrait'.

Supported dimension units are: 'mm', 'cm', 'in', 'px'. No unit means 'px'.

You can create a header and footer like this:

horseman
  .open('http://www.amazon.com')
  .pdf('amazon.pdf', {
    format: 'Letter',
    orientation: 'portrait',
    margin: '0.5in',
    header: {
      height: '3cm',
      contents: function(pageNum, numPages) {
        if (pageNum == 1) {
          return '';
        }
        return '<h3>Header ' + pageNum + ' / ' + numPages + '</h3>';
      }
    },
    footer: {
      height: '3cm',
      contents: function(pageNum, numPages) {
        if (pageNum == 1) {
          return '';
        }
        return '<h3>Footer ' + pageNum + ' / ' + numPages + '</h3>';
      }
    }
  })
  .close()

.log()

Outputs the results of the last call in the chain, or a string you provide, without breaking the chain.

horseman
  .open('http://www.google.com')
  .count('a')
  .log() // outputs the number of anchor tags
  .click('a')
  .log('clicked the button') //outputs the string
  .close();

.do(fn)

Run an function without breaking the chain. Works with asynchronous functions. Must call the callback when complete.

horseman
  .open('http://www.google.com')
  .do(function(done){
    setTimeout(done,1000);
  })
  .close();

.evaluate(fn, [arg1, arg2,...])

Invokes fn on the page with args. On completion it returns a value. Useful for extracting information from the page.

horseman
  .open('http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headless_Horseman')
  .evaluate( function(selector){
      // This code is executed inside the browser.
      // It's sandboxed from Node, and has no access to anything
      // in Node scope, unless you pass it in, like we did with 'selector'.
      //
      // You do have access to jQuery, via $, automatically.
      return {
        height : $( selector ).height(),
        width : $( selector ).width()
      }
    }, '.thumbimage')
  .then(function(size){
    console.log(size);
    return horseman.close();
  });

Can be used in an asynchronous way as well (with a node-style callback). This is similar to .do, but fn is invoked in the browser.

horseman
  .open('http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headless_Horseman')
  .evaluate(function(ms, done){
    var start = Date.now();
    setTimeout(function() {
      done(null, Date.now() - start);
      // ^ Can pass an Error as first argument,
      // making evaluate action reject its Promise in Node.
      // Second argument is what the Promise will resolve to.
    }, ms);
  }, 100)
  .then(function(actualMs){
    console.log(actualMs);
  })
  .close();

Lastly, if fn returns a Promise or thenable, it will be waited on and the action in Node will resolve/reject accordingly.

horseman
  .open('http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headless_Horseman')
  .evaluate(function() {
    // Silly example for illustrative purposes.
    return Bluebird.delay(100).return('Hello World');
  })
  .then(function(mesg){
    // Will log 'Hello World' after a roughly 100 ms delay.
    console.log(mesg);
  })
  .close();

.click(selector)

Clicks the selector element once.

.select(selector, value)

Sets the value of a select element to value.

.clear(selector)

Sets the value of an element to ''.

.type(selector, text, [options])

Enters the text provided into the selector element. Options is an object containing eventType ('keypress', 'keyup', 'keydown'. Default is 'keypress') and modifiers, which is a string in the form of ctrl+shift+alt.

.upload(selector, path)

Specify the path to upload into a file input selector element.

.download(url, [path], [binary])

Download the contents of url. If path is supplied the contents will be written there, otherwise this gets the contents. If binary is true it gets the contents as a node Buffer, otherwise it gets them as a string (binary defaults to false).

Please note: binary downloads do not work correctly with PhantomJS 1.x

.injectJs(file)

Inject a JavaScript file onto the page.

.includeJs(url)

Include an external JavaScript script on the page via URL.

.mouseEvent(type, [x, y, [button]])

Send a mouse event to the page. Each event is sent to the page as if it comes from real user interaction. type must be one of 'mouseup', 'mousedown', 'mousemove', 'doubleclick', or 'click', which is the default. x and y are optional and specify the location on the page to send the mouse event. button is also optional, and defaults to 'left'.

.keyboardEvent(type, key, [modifier])

Send a keyboard event to the page. Each event is sent to the page as if it comes from real user interaction. type must be one of 'keyup', 'keydown', or 'keypress', which is the default. key should be a numerical value from this page. For instance, to send an "enter" key press, use .keyboardEvent('keypress',16777221).

modifier is optional, and comes from this list:

0x02000000: A Shift key on the keyboard is pressed
0x04000000: A Ctrl key on the keyboard is pressed
0x08000000: An Alt key on the keyboard is pressed
0x10000000: A Meta key on the keyboard is pressed
0x20000000: A keypad button is pressed

To send a shift+p event, you would use .keyboardEvent('keypress','p',0x02000000).

Waiting

These functions for the browser to wait for an event to occur. If the event does not occur before the timeout period (configurable via the options), a timeout event will be fired and the Promise for the action will reject.

.wait(ms)

Wait for ms milliseconds e.g. .wait(5000)

.waitForNextPage([options])

Wait until a page finishes loading, typically after a .click(). options can have be {timeout: 5000} to define an action-specific timeout.

.waitForSelector(selector, [options])

Wait until the element selector is present, e.g., .waitForSelector('#pay-button')

options can have be {timeout: 5000} to define an action-specific timeout.

.waitFor(fn, [arg1, arg2,...], value)

Wait until the fn evaluated on the page returns the specified value. fn is invoked with args.

// This will call the function in the browser repeatedly
// until true (or whatever else you specified) is returned
horseman
  .waitFor(function waitForSelectorCount(selector, count) {
    return $(selector).length >= count
  }, '.some-selector', 2, true)
  // last argument (true here) is what return value to wait for

.waitFor(options)

Alternative signature for .waitFor, with extra options.

// This will call the function in the browser repeatedly
// until true (or whatever else you specified) is returned
horseman
  .waitFor({
    fn : function waitForSelectorCount(selector, count) {
      return $(selector).length >= count
    },
    args : ['.some-selector', 2],
    value : true
  })
  // last argument (true here) is what return value to wait for

fn : function to execute, mandatory args : fn arguments value : Wait until the fn evaluated on the page returns the specified value. timeout : specific timeout

Frames

.frameName()

Get the name of the current frame.

.frameCount()

Get the number of frames inside the current frame.

.frameNames()

Get the names of the frames inside the current frame.

.switchToFocusedFrame()

Switch to the frame that is in focus.

.switchToFrame(nameOrPosition)

Switch to the frame specified by a frame name or a frame position.

.switchToMainFrame()

Switch to the main frame of the page.

.switchToParentFrame()

Switch to the parent frame of the current frame. Resolves to true it switched frames and false if it did not (i.e., the main frame was the current frame).

Tabs

Horseman supports multiple tabs being open at the same time.

.openTab(url)

Open a URL in a new tab. Fires a tabCreated event. Also, the newly created tab becomes the current tab.

.tabCount()

Returns the number of tabs currently open.

.switchToTab(tabnumber)

Switch to another tab. Count starts at 0.

.closeTab(tabNum)

Close an open tab. Count starts at 0.

Events

.on(event, callback)

Respond to page events with the callback. Be sure to set these before calling .open(). The callback is evaluated in node. If you need to return from callback, you probably want .at instead.

Supported events are:

initialized - callback()
loadStarted - callback()
loadFinished - callback(status)
tabCreated - callback(tabNum)
tabClosed - callback(tabNum)
urlChanged - callback(targetUrl)
navigationRequested - callback(url, type, willNavigate, main)
resourceRequested - callback(requestData, networkRequest)
resourceReceived - callback(response)
consoleMessage - callback(msg, lineNumber, sourceId)
alert - callback(msg)
confirm - callback(msg)
prompt - callback(msg, defaultValue)
error - callback(msg, trace)
timeout - callback(msg) - Fired when a wait timeout period elapses.

For a more in depth description, see the full callbacks list for phantomjs.

horseman
  .on('consoleMessage', function( msg ){
    console.log(msg);
  })

.at(event, callback)

Respond to page events with the callback. Be sure to set these before calling .open(). The callback is evaluated in PhantomJS. If you do not need to return from callback, you probably want .on instead.

Useful events are:

confirm - callback(msg)
prompt - callback(msg, defaultVal)
filePicker - callback(oldFile)

For a more in depth description, see the full callbacks list for phantomjs.

horseman
  .at('confirm', function(msg) {
    return msg === 'Like this?' ? true : false;
  })

Extending Horseman

You can add your own actions to horseman with Horseman.registerAction. Be sure to register all actions before calling the constructor.

Horseman.registerAction('size', function(selector) {
  // The function will be called with the Horseman instance as this
  var self = this;
  // Return the horseman chain, or any Promise
  return this
    .waitForSelector(selector)
    .then(function() {
      return {
        w: self.width(selector),
        h: self.height(selector)
      };
    })
    .props();
});

var horseman = new Horseman();
horseman
  .open('http://example.org')
  .size('body')
  .log() // { w: 400, h: 240 }
  .close();

Yielding

You can use yields with Horseman with a library like co.

var Horseman = require('node-horseman'),
  co = require('co');

var horseman = new Horseman();

co(function *(){
  yield horseman.open('http://www.google.com');
  var title = yield horseman.title();
  var numLinks = yield horseman.count('a');
  console.log('Title: ' + title); //Google
  console.log('Num Links: ' + numLinks); //35
  yield horseman.close();
}).catch(function(e){
  console.log(e)
});

If you use yields, you may need to use the harmony flag when you run your file:

node --harmony test.js

Debug

To run the same file with debugging output, run it like this DEBUG=horseman node myfile.js.

This will print out some additional information about what's going on:

horseman .setup() creating phantom instance 1 +0ms
horseman load finished, injecting jquery and client scripts +401ms
horseman injected jQuery +0ms
horseman .open: http://www.google.com +66ms
horseman .type() horseman into input[name='q'] +51ms

Tests

Automated tests for Horseman itself are run using Mocha and Should, both of which will be installed via npm install. To run Horseman's tests, just do npm test.

When the tests are done, you'll see something like this:

$ npm test
  102 passing (42s)
  2 pending

License (MIT)

WWWWWW||WWWWWW
 W W W||W W W
      ||
    ( OO )__________
     /  |           \
    /o o|    MIT     \
    \___/||_||__||_|| *
         || ||  || ||
        _||_|| _||_||
       (__|__|(__|__|

Copyright (c) John Titus john.titus@gmail.com

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 317 Commits
examples		examples
files		files
lib		lib
test		test
.editorconfig		.editorconfig
.gitignore		.gitignore
.hound.yml		.hound.yml
.jshintrc		.jshintrc
.travis.yml		.travis.yml
AUTHORS		AUTHORS
CHANGELOG.md		CHANGELOG.md
LICENSE		LICENSE
Readme.md		Readme.md
package.json		package.json

License

johntitus/node-horseman

Folders and files

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Horseman

Examples

Search on Google

Count Twitter Followers Concurrently

For longer examples, check out the Examples folder.

Installation

API

Setup

new Horseman(options)

Configuration

.setProxy(ip, [port], [type], [user, pass])

Cleanup

.close()

Navigation

.open(url)

.post(url, postData)

.put(url, putData)

.back()

.forward()

.status()

.reload()

.cookies([object|array of objects|string])

.userAgent(userAgent)

.headers(headers)

.authentication(user, password)

.viewport(width, height)

.scrollTo(top, left)

.zoom(zoomFactor)

Evaluation

.title()

.url()

.visible(selector)

.exists(selector)

.count(selector)

.html([selector], [file])

.text(selector)

.plainText()

.value(selector, [val])

.attribute(selector, attribute)

.cssProperty(selector, property)

.width(selector)

.height(selector)

.screenshot(path)

.screenshotBase64(type)

.crop(area, path)

.cropBase64(area, type)

.pdf(path, [paperSize])

.log()

.do(fn)

.evaluate(fn, [arg1, arg2,...])

.click(selector)

.select(selector, value)

.clear(selector)

.type(selector, text, [options])

.upload(selector, path)

.download(url, [path], [binary])

.injectJs(file)

.includeJs(url)

.mouseEvent(type, [x, y, [button]])

.keyboardEvent(type, key, [modifier])

Waiting

.wait(ms)

.waitForNextPage([options])

.waitForSelector(selector, [options])

.waitFor(fn, [arg1, arg2,...], value)

.waitFor(options)

Frames

.frameName()

.frameCount()

.frameNames()

.switchToFocusedFrame()

.switchToFrame(nameOrPosition)

.switchToMainFrame()

.switchToParentFrame()

Packages