Cactus

Designs can be tested too (you should read the slides)! Cactus is a proof of concept for a CSS testing framework.

It ensures that you always have the same CSS styling for DOM elements that you care about.

Prerequisites

• Ruby on Rails, 3.2.x
• jquery-rails

Installation

Install the Cactus gem manually or include it in your Rails Gemfile.

gem install cactus

Add jQuery to application.js (or any manifest file)

//= require jquery

Add the Cactus helper in your application layout, just before the body closing tag (assuming haml).

= cactus

Finally, add some CSS specs (written in JavaScript) in public/cactus_spec. Files need to end with spec.js.

Cactus.expect(".header", "font-size").toEqual("24px");
Cactus.expect("p", "font-size").toEqual("12px");

A Brief Explanation

The Cactus helper in your application layout includes Cactus.js and all spec files located in public/cactus_spec/ on every page load in the Dev and Test env; the helper will not output anything when in other (Prod, Staging etc) environments.

Once the files are included, the specs will be verified against the current page DOM, and results will be displayed.

Writing Specs

Write your specs in JavaScript, and place them in the public/cactus_spec/ folder.

Expectations

You can make an expectation either on a specific element or a group of elements.

expect

Cactus.expect(".header", "font-size").toEqual("24px");

The expect method requires a tag name and an attribute. All elements that resolve to the tag name will be tested.

Matchers

The expectations are chained to matchers for verification of CSS styling.

toEqual

Cactus.expect(".header", "font-size").toEqual("24px");

This tests for total equality.

toContain

Cactus.expect(".header", "font-family").toContain("Helvetica");

This tests for partial equality, using a REGEX constructed from the pass in value.

toHaveColor

Cactus.expect(".header", "color").toEqual("#ff0000");

This tests for total equality, by converting rgba values returned by browser into hex values.

toHaveMargin

Cactus.expect(".header").toHaveMargin("10px");

This tests equality on all sides of the element. You can pass in shorthand or longhand notation.

toHavePadding

Cactus.expect(".header").toHaveMargin("10px 5px");

This tests equality on all sides of the element. You can pass in shorthand or longhand notation.

toHaveBorderWidth

Cactus.expect(".header").toHaveBorderWidth("1px");

This tests equality on all sides of the element. You can pass in shorthand or longhand notation.

toHaveBorderColor

Cactus.expect(".header").toHaveBorderColor("#ff000");

This tests equality on all sides of the element.

Automating

With RSpec and Capybara (Selenium webdriver), it's possible to automate the Cactus tests by writing request specs.

Add the following RSpec matcher to spec/spec_helper.rb:

RSpec::Matchers.define :be_cactus do
  match do |actual|
    all(".cactus_fail").blank?
  end

  failure_message_for_should do |actual|
    message = "Oei! Something is wrong with the CSS on '#{actual.current_url}' lah!\n"
    all(".cactus_fail").each do |failure|
      message += "- #{failure.text}\n"
    end
    message
  end
end

Write a request spec spec/requests/cactus_spec.rb

describe 'rspec and capybara integration with cactus', js: true do
  it "is cactus-ready " do
    page.should be_cactus
  end
end

Maintainers

• [Winston Teo](mailto: winston@newcontext.com), {new context}

License

This software is licensed under the MIT License.