why pageObject based on Cheezy does not work? - page-object-gem

Question

I'm new to ruby (1.9.3)
I have intermediate experience with Selenium WebDriver plus C#. I want to move to Watir-Webdriver.
I'd be grateful to find out why the first block of IRB code works, but the second block simply loads the correct page, then does nothing. The page is active and responds to manual input.
The second block of code is based on the PageObject example here:
https://github.com/cheezy/page-object/wiki/Get-me-started-right-now%21
require 'watir-webdriver'
browser = Watir::Browser.start 'http://x.com/'
browser.select_list(:id, "ddlInterestType").select("Deferred")
browser.select_list(:id, "ddlCompanyName").select("XYZ")
browser.button(:value,"Enter Transactions").click
Second block
require 'watir-webdriver'
browser = Watir::Browser.new :firefox
browser.goto "http://x.com/"
deferredPage = DeferredPage.new(browser)
deferredPage.interestType.select = 'Deferred'
deferredPage.company.select = 'XYZ'
deferredPage.enterTransactions
class DeferredPage
include PageObject
select_list(:interestType, :id => 'ddlInterestType')
select_list(:company, :id => 'ddlCompanyName')
button(:enterTransactions, :id => 'btnEnterTransactions')
end

Answer 1

In your page-object code example, after loading the page, an exception is likely being thrown (which makes it seem like nothing happens). That code should throw an no method exception:
undefined method `select=' for "stuff":String
When you declare a select list there are three methods created:
your_select= - this is for setting the select list
your_select - this is for getting the select list value
your_select_element - this is for getting the page-object gem element
When you do deferredPage.interestType, it returns a string that is the value of the select list. Strings do not have a select= method, which is why you get the exception (and does nothing).
The two selections should be done without the .select:
deferredPage.interestType = 'Deferred'
deferredPage.company = 'XYZ'
As you can see the page-object API is slightly different than the watir API.

Answer 2

While googling for info on page objects, I found this page by Alister Scott. :
http://watirmelon.com/2012/06/04/roll-your-own-page-objects/
For an idiot++ such as me, I think I'll use his method until I know more about Watir-Webdriver. Based on #justinko's comment, I'll stick to one API for the present. I tried rolling my own, and it works fine:
require 'watir-webdriver'
browser = Watir::Browser.new :ie
class DeferredPage
def initialize( browser )
#browser = browser
end
def enterIntType(intType)
#browser.select_list(:id, "ddlInterestType").select(intType)
end
def clickEnter()
#browser.button(:value,"Enter Transactions").click
end
end
dp = DeferredPage.new(browser)
browser.goto "http://x.com"
dp.enterIntType( "Deferred" )
dp.clickEnter

Answer 3

Could you please let us know what error you are getting? I suspect the problem you are seeing is related to the way the Ruby interpreter reads the code. It reads the file from top to bottom and you are using the DeferredPage class before it is defined. What would happen if you changed your code to this:
require 'watir-webdriver'
require 'page-object'
browser = Watir::Browser.new :firefox
class DeferredPage
include PageObject
select_list(:interestType, :id => 'ddlInterestType')
select_list(:company, :id => 'ddlCompanyName')
button(:enterTransactions, :id => 'btnEnterTransactions')
end
deferredPage = DeferredPage.new(browser)
deferredPage.navigate_to "http://x.com/"
deferredPage.interestType = 'Deferred'
deferredPage.company = 'XYZ'
deferredPage.enterTransactions
In this case I am declaring the class prior to using it.
Another thing I might suggest is creating a higher level method to perform the data entry. For example, you could change your code to this:
require 'watir-webdriver'
require 'page-object'
browser = Watir::Browser.new :firefox
class DeferredPage
include PageObject
select_list(:interestType, :id => 'ddlInterestType')
select_list(:company, :id => 'ddlCompanyName')
button(:enterTransactions, :id => 'btnEnterTransactions')
def do_something(interest, company)
self.interestType = interest
self.company = company
enterTransactions
end
end
deferredPage = DeferredPage.new(browser)
deferredPage.navigate_to "http://x.com/"
deferredPage.do_someting('Deferred', 'XYZ')
This is cleaner - the access to the page is abstracted behind a method that should add some business value.
-Cheezy