PhantomJS is a browser, and the basic function of a browser is to access web pages. In this chapter, we will learn various techniques of loading web pages in PhantomJS, and we will explore beyond using it simply as a headless browser.

Simulating mouse clicks

Web pages are built with interlocking links, and getting to another page can be done by following that link. In a normal browser, this is done by clicking with your mouse button. In PhantomJS there are two ways to do this: one is by using PhantomJS sendEvent functions (PhantomJS event triggering); the other is by using DOM event triggering.

PhantomJS event triggering

The WebPage API supports sending events to the page. This can be mouse events or keyboard events. We will discuss more events as we progress, but for now we will tackle how to simulate clicking on page elements and links using PhantomJS event triggering.

PhantomJS Mouse Event Triggering API
`sendEvent( eventType, Point X, Point Y, button='left' )`
`eventType`	`mouseup` `mousedown` `mousemove` `click` `doubleclick`
`Point X`	This is the X coordinate where we trigger the event
`Point Y`	This is the Y coordinate where we trigger the event
`button`	This states which mouse button to trigger; by default...

Key benefits

Writing scripts that can interact directly with web services and pages
Interacting with social media websites using PhantomJS scripts
Creating web-based test scripts and running them in a headless browser

Description

PhantomJS is a headless WebKit browser with JavaScript API that allows you to create new ways to automate web testing. PhantomJS is currently being used by a large number of users to help them integrate headless web testing into their development processes. It also gives you developers a new framework to create web-based applications, from simple web manipulation to performance measurement and monitoring.A step step-by by-step guide that will help you develop new tools for solving web and testing problems in an effective and quick way. The book will teach you how to use and maximize PhantomJS to develop new tools for web scrapping, web performance measurement and monitoring, and headless web testing. This book will help you understand PhantomJS’ scripting API capabilities and strengths.This book starts by looking at PhantomJS’ JavaScript API, features, and basic execution of scripts. Throughout the book, you will learn details to help you write scripts to manipulate web documents and fully create a web scrapping tool.Through its practical approach, this book strives to teach you by example, where each chapter focuses on the common and practical usage of PhantomJS, and how to extract meaningful information from the web and other services.By the end of the book, you will have acquired the skills to enable you to use PhantomJS for web testing, as well as learning the basics of Jasmine, and how it can be used with PhantomJS.

Who is this book for?

If you are a JavaScript developers who is interested in developing applications that interact with various web services, using a headless browser, then this book is ideal for you. This book will also be good for you if you are planning to create a headless browser testing for your web application. Basic understanding of JavaScript is assumed.

What you will learn

Explore the possibilities of PhantomJS development and make use of a headless browser
Understand PhantomJS’ core features and API
Manipulate the DOM properties of web pages using scripts
Interact with web pages using PhantomJS scripts
Learn how to emulate keyboards and mouse actions
Work with geolocation services with PhantomJS
Build scripts that will create web sites snapshots
Create and implement PhantomJS custom modules
Use PhantomJS to perform headless testing with Jasmine

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Bill Mar 30, 2014

Great book. I had so much pleasure reading it and harness the power of phantomjs. Having a limited time for a project, i couldnt find much info about it even on their main site. This book provided an easy to follow guide. I recommend it!

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Geomar Esmilla Feb 10, 2014

Getting Started with PhantomJS is a book about well, getting started. My work for the past 5 years requires me to review application architecture and data protection solutions, needless to say I have not coded in years. And this book just got me started writing codes again. You see, it really gets you started.There are very few books on web development tools these days that could capture my interest and maintain my interest. This book? I like this book. I like the way it's written. You should buy a copy and read it. Why? Because it starts and ends the way I like it. From introducing you to the command line interface (really for geek in all of us who loves that legacy look) and it ends with a shortlist of cool tools that will keep your momentum going.Aries Beltran writes that way that makes me reminisce those moments reading Borland books back in the 80s and 90s. Ahh.. Nostalgia. Simple, and effective in catching the reader's interest as one flips from page to page. This is a 140-page book. It's not long like those 5 inches thick book. But I'm impatient. I thought I'm going to speed read my way through it because I just don't have the patience, but I was wrong. It got me engaged enough to read, really read it from cover to cover. Every 11 chapter provides a newbie to PhantomJS like me a "Eureka" moment. I found myself immerse in Aries Beltran's world. I coded while reading. I coded while I ate (I especially loved Chapter 8: Cookies). And I coded in my sleep. And discovered that I like PhantomJS.The book is packed with cool recommendations:* Check out Confess.JS for metrics (a topic close to my heart)* CasperJS seems like a natural progression from PhantomJSThis book is basically good stuff. It's a book you will revisit again and again. It's a good addition to any developer's and web aficionado's library.Check them out. [...]

Robert Y. De Cruz Feb 10, 2014

PhantomJS makes website UI testing easy. It can be used as an automation tool for repeatedly going through each page, providing a means for testing that a code commit didn't break the website. Full-time testers can use it to automate their work by setting up the test scripts once, then letting PhantomJS do the tedious work of re-running the script every time the same functionality needs to be tested. This is the way UI testing should be done and I wish we had a similar tool/framework for non-Webkit browsers and desktop apps.This book is an excellent tutorial to PhantomJS. After going through the book, I'm able to do simple tasks such as opening web pages, triggering UI elements, etc. Then it shows me how to do the more complex stuff such as taking a screenshot of a web page when it was accessed, reading cookies, and doing unit testing. Software Testers will find this book valuable to their job as it goes through all the functionality you'll need to test most websites. This book will also be useful for Software Devs aiming to add some UI-level unit testing to make sure markup and JS changes don't break any of the existing UI functionality. This is a must-have book for any web development project.I also found the book to be a good reference manual as it's designed to be easy to look up how to do things. The example scripts are simple to follow and can be readily incorporated in your test scripts. It's a valuable tool in the tester's arsenal. Highly recommended for website testers and web developers looking for an easier way to test and automate their web scripts.[...]

SetITGood Feb 09, 2014

Being in IT for almost two decades now I am perhaps lucky to have witnessed the growth of this industry. More so, I am glad to see the "rebirth" of Java Scripting for front-end development in the recent years. But ask any front-end developer and one thing they dreaded most was testing these web pages and Java Scripts. PhantomJS - however is a game changer!PhantomJS provides "headless" testing of web applications. Wait, what did I mean with headless? When you are typing a URL from the browser, it essentially creates a request and the response is reflected on the page. PhantomJS actually does the same thing, EXCEPT we don't need to wait for it to be rendered before our eyes! Probably this is how it got its name :)PhantomJS also can dynamically capture/render pages as images, allow manipulation of page content/event, gain access to network-level information, and ability to save important infos into files for later processing.I find this book easy to read with only 121 pages, you can actually finish it in one sitting (but would be good to do it in front of your laptop trying out the sample codes yourself). However, it is advised you already have concrete knowledge of Java Scripts, HMTL, and CSS since the book heavily used later technologies such as DOM, JSON, and HTML5.An improvement I guess would be since the goal of the book was to jumpstart IT practitioners into PhantomJS, it would have been better to have laid out the different syntaxes of PhantomJS itself. In Chapter 2, I was surprised to see "===" as the conditional operator. Having used to "==" in Java, I had to check this if it was a typo.The book has more to give than what I expected. All throughout, the book used actual web pages (e.g. Pinterest, Instagram) as examples for us to run our tests, which challenges our creativity and encourages us to further try it out with other pages. Aside from PhantomJS, I liked how in a subtle way, the author introduced other technologies such as Yahoo LocalSearch and Google Directions API (which made me realized how easy it was to use them!). In the last chapter, the book introduced CasperJS - a spin-off extension and further simplified PhantomJS. I find this really exciting!The book is concise and straightforward, I highly encourage everyone doing front-end development to read this and for Technical Architects to consider PhantomJS at production work.On a side note, I noticed that the author used his family member's names all throughout the book, so I guess this was in some way a personal book. Anyway, I am excited for PhantomJS and is looking forward to further playing with it!

Andrew Artajos Feb 08, 2014

At 140 pages and 11 chapters, this book is a quick read. To be honest it looks more like a booklet than a real book. Despite its appearance, it delivers the meat on the chosen subject--Getting started with PhantomJS.It starts you off on basic tasks like installing PhantomJS, working with the commandline, then moves toward the more complex tasks. The author shows you how to download a simple webpage then slowly builds upon this foundation in the succeeding chapters, until you get to learn how to use PhantomJS with different API's, JQuery, Jasmine--a unittesting framework, and CasperJS. There were some parts of the book I rather skip like Capturing Errors, Working with Files, and Cookies. These topics are boring but necessary nonetheless.The book is clear, concise, and uses simple English. This helps the reader go through the book quickly without having to put more effort in understanding the subject.The book in paperback format, although more expensive, is easier to read than the ebook format. When working with the examples, I think it would be more practical to buy the ebook instead. It will be easier to refer to when typing the actual code on the computer.However, this book makes you want more. I want to see in the future a more in depth take on PhantomJS. Most likely a book that discusses the best practices and some programming gems on the topic.Overall, this book is quite informative. It gets your feet wet on PhantomJS. I'm surprised that PhantomJS could open up to a lot of possible avenues to explore. PhantomJS when combined with modules, API's, and other open source software, offers a rich set of building tools for creating the next kick ass browser based solution.as seen on [...]

`getElementById`	This retrieves the element using a unique ID
`getElementByClassName`	This selects the element using the element class name
`getElementByName`	This provides a reference using the element name
`getElementByTagName...`

Getting Started with PhantomJS: Harness the strength and capabilities of PhantomJS to interact with the web and perform website testing with a headless browser based on WebKit

What do you get with Print?

Getting Started with PhantomJS

Chapter 2. Manipulating Page Content

Opening a web page

Playing with DOM elements

Selecting elements

Simulating mouse clicks

PhantomJS event triggering

Working with form fields

Summary

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Getting Started with PhantomJS: Harness the strength and capabilities of PhantomJS to interact with the web and perform website testing with a headless browser based on WebKit

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