November 2019 Summaries

Siemens, a leader in digital infrastructure, sought to maintain high standards for their SaaS solution, Building Operator, by enhancing their testing processes. In a webcast scheduled for December 11th, Siemens SW Hub Cloud team will share how they achieved a 38% increase in productivity, reduced test code by 49%, and sped up test execution by 375% using Cypress. The session will cover their use of Cypress for running extensive tests across various platforms to ensure the reliability of their Smart Infrastructure cloud product. Attendees will gain insights into Siemens' advanced UI and API testing strategies, the use of community-created plugins for Cypress, and methods to execute tests across different environments for robust validation of code iterations and deployments. The webcast includes a live Q&A and will be recorded for those who cannot attend live.

The blog post by Gleb Bahmutov introduces the cypress-io/github-action, a tool designed to simplify the process of running Cypress end-to-end tests on GitHub by automating setup tasks such as installing dependencies, caching Node modules, and executing tests. It provides a straightforward configuration for integrating Cypress tests into GitHub workflows, and includes features like parallelization to speed up testing by distributing the workload across multiple CI workers, which significantly reduces test execution time. The post highlights the ability to customize the testing process by building web applications, starting servers, and using the wait-on parameter to ensure servers are responsive before tests run. Furthermore, it demonstrates how to utilize GitHub Actions' cross-platform capabilities to run tests on Windows, Linux, and macOS, enabling more comprehensive testing across different environments. Users are encouraged to try the Cypress GitHub Action and contribute any suggestions or issues to its repository.

Gleb Bahmutov's blog post discusses the integration of end-to-end testing into JAMstack websites using the Cypress Test Runner, highlighting how Markdown pages can include their own tests. He explains the process of embedding tests directly within Markdown files using a Cypress Markdown transpiler, which allows for seamless verification of site functionality. Bahmutov shares his experience presenting on this topic at ReactiveConf 2019, emphasizing the importance of topics like code coverage and writing faster tests. He provides resources such as video timestamps and slide links for those interested in specific topics from his presentation. Additionally, he offers technical tips on configuring Cypress for testing and suggests ways to hide test code in Markdown files to maintain page aesthetics. The blog post is supported by a source repository and a deployed site showcasing these testing techniques in action.

Cypress 3.5 and 3.6 introduced several significant updates, including the ability to record video during test runs in Chrome browsers, enhancing the testing process by providing visual insight during CI runs. These versions also improved mouse event handling, with the addition of the .rightclick() command and enhancements to the .dblclick() command, allowing for more precise interaction testing. Users can now specify their system's Node version to overcome compatibility issues with dependencies, offering more flexibility in executing code outside the browser context. Additionally, Cypress allows for custom configuration file paths, enabling different settings for specific test environments, and has introduced new device size-presets and query string options for cy.visit(), alongside new keyboard shortcuts to streamline workflow in the Test Runner. These updates, along with numerous bug fixes, aim to refine and expand the tool's functionality for developers.