Cypress Real Events

Fire native system events from Cypress

Why?

Cypress default events are simulated. That means that all events like

cy.click

cy.type

event.isTrusted

false

Thanks to Chrome Devtools Protocol. Cypress is connecting to CDP for tasks like screenshots, setting viewport and others. This project utilises the same connection to fire system events. Event firing system works literally like in puppeteer. And as a result unlocks such features like hovering and native focus management via Tab.

Requirements

Cypress only. Really. Cypress itself can fire native events. The only limitation for real events – they work only in the chromium-based browser. That means that Firefox is not supported, at least for now.

Quick overview

Here is a simple test that can be written with native events:

it("tests real events", () => {
  cy.get("input").realClick(); // perform a native real click on the field
  cy.realType("cypress real event"); // fires native system keypress events and fills the field
  cy.realPress("Tab"); // native tab click switches the focus
  cy.get("input").realMouseDown(); // perform a native mouse press on the field
  cy.get("input").realMouseUp(); // perform a native mouse release on the field
  cy.focused().realHover(); // hovers over the new focused element
  cy.contains("some text in the hovered popover");
});

Installation

Install npm package:

npm install cypress-real-events

yarn add cypress-real-events

Register new commands by adding this to your

cypress/support/index.{js,ts}

import "cypress-real-events/support";

If you are using typescript, also add the following to

cypress/tsconfig.json

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "types": ["cypress", "cypress-real-events"]
  }
}

API

The idea of the commands – they should be as similar as possible to cypress default commands (like

cy.type

real

cy.realType

Here is an overview of the available real event commands: - cy.realClick - cy.realHover - cy.realPress - cy.realTouch - cy.realType - cy.realSwipe - cy.realMouseDown - cy.realMouseUp

cy.realClick

Fires native system click event.

cy.get("button").realClick();
cy.get("button").realClick(options);

Example:

cy.get("button").realClick({ position: "topLeft" }) // click on the top left corner of button
cy.get("body").realClick({ x: 100, y: 1240 }) // click by the x & y coordinates relative to the whole window

Options:

• Optional

  button: \"none\" | \"left\" | \"right\" | \"middle\" | \"back\" | \"forward\"

• Optional

  pointer: \"mouse\" | \"pen\"

• Optional

  x coordinate to click x: number

• Optional

  y coordinate to click y: number

• Optional

  position: "topLeft" | "top" | "topRight" | "left" | "center" | "right" | "bottomLeft" | "bottom" | "bottomRight"

• Optional

  scrollBehavior: "center" | "top" | "bottom" | "nearest" | false

Make sure that

x

and

y

has a bigger priority than

position

.

cy.realHover

Fires a real native hover event. Yes, it can test

:hover

cy.get("button").realHover();
cy.get("button").realHover(options);

Example:

cy.get("button").realHover({ position: "bottomLeft" }) // hovers over the bottom left corner of button

Options:

• Optional

  pointer: \"mouse\" | \"pen\"

• Optional

  position: "topLeft" | "top" | "topRight" | "left" | "center" | "right" | "bottomLeft" | "bottom" | "bottomRight"

• Optional

  scrollBehavior: "center" | "top" | "bottom" | "nearest" | false

cy.realPress

Fires native press event. It can fire one key event or the "shortcut" like Shift+Control+M. Make sure that event is global, it means that it is required to firstly focus any control before firing this event.

cy.realPress("Tab"); // switch the focus for a11y testing
cy.realPress(["Alt", "Meta", "P"]) // Alt+(Command or Control)+P

Usage

cy.realPress(key);
cy.realPress(key, options);

Parameters:

| Name | Type | Default value | Description | | --------- | ---------------------------------------------- | ------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | |

key

options

Optional

cy.realTouch

Fires native system touch event.

cy.get("button").realTouch();
cy.get("button").realTouch(options);

Usage:

cy.get("button").realTouch({ position: "topLeft" }) // touches the top left corner of button
cy.get("body").realTouch({ x: 100, y: 1240 }) // touches the x & y coordinates relative to the whole window

Options:

• Optional

  x: undefined | number

  default

  30

• Optional

  y: undefined | false | true

  default

  true

• Optional

  position: "topLeft" | "top" | "topRight" | "left" | "center" | "right" | "bottomLeft" | "bottom" | "bottomRight"

• Optional

  radius: undefined | number

  default

  1

• Optional

  radiusX: undefined | number

  default

  1

• Optional

  radiusY: undefined | number

  default

  1

cy.realType

Runs a sequence of native press events (via

cy.realPress

cy.realType("type any text"); // type any text on the page

cy.get("input").focus();
cy.realType("some text {enter}"); // type into focused field

Usage:

cy.realType(text);
cy.realType(text, options);

Parameters:

| Name | Type | Default value | Description | | --------- | ------- | ------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | |

text

options

Options:

• Optional

  delay: undefined | number

  default

  30

• Optional

  log: undefined | false | true

  default

  true

• Optional

  pressDelay: undefined | number

  default

  10

cy.realSwipe

Runs a native swipe events. It means that touch events will be fired. Actually a sequence of

touchStart

touchMove

touchEnd

Make sure to enable mobile viewport :)

cy.get('.element').realSwipe("toLeft");  // swipes from right to left
cy.get('.element').realSwipe("toRight"); // inverted

Usage:

cy.realSwipe(direction);
cy.realSwipe(direction, options);

Parameters:

| Name | Type | Default value | Description | | --------- | ------- | ------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | |

direction

"toLeft" | "toTop" | "toRight" | "toBottom";

options

Options:

• Optional

  length: undefined | number

  default

  10

• Optional

  x coordinate to touch x: number

• Optional

  y coordinate to touch y: number

• Optional

  touchPosition: "topLeft" | "top" | "topRight" | "left" | "center" | "right" | "bottomLeft" | "bottom" | "bottomRight"

cy.realMouseDown

Fires native system mouse down event.

cy.get("button").realMouseDown();
cy.get("button").realMouseDown(options);

Example:

cy.get("button").realMouseDown({ position: "topLeft" }) // click on the top left corner of button

Options:

• Optional

  pointer: \"mouse\" | \"pen\"

• Optional

  position: "topLeft" | "top" | "topRight" | "left" | "center" | "right" | "bottomLeft" | "bottom" | "bottomRight"

• Optional

  scrollBehavior: "center" | "top" | "bottom" | "nearest" | false

cy.realMouseUp

Fires native system mouse up event.

cy.get("button").realMouseUp();
cy.get("button").realMouseUp(options);

Example:

cy.get("button").realMouseUp({ position: "topLeft" }) // click on the top left corner of button

Options:

• Optional

  pointer: \"mouse\" | \"pen\"

• Optional

  position: "topLeft" | "top" | "topRight" | "left" | "center" | "right" | "bottomLeft" | "bottom" | "bottomRight"

• Optional

  scrollBehavior: "center" | "top" | "bottom" | "nearest" | false

FAQ

1. Why

   .realHover

   hovering state does not show in the visual regression services?

Unforunately, visual regression services like Happo and Percy does not solve this issue. Thier architecture is based on saving dom snapshot, not the screenshot and then rendering the snapshot on thier machines. It means that hover and focus state will be lost if it won't be serialized manually.

In fact it means that if you will use plain

cy.screenshot

UX

One problem of the real native system events I need to mention – you will not get an error message if the event wasn't produced. Similar to selenium or playwright – if a javascript event was not fired you will not get a comprehensive error message.

So probably this package should not be used as a replacement of the cypress events, at least for the writing tests experience 🐨

License

The project is licensed under the terms of MIT license