How to write automated tests for the <noscript> tag?

Question

I'm building a webapp which falls back on a <noscript> tag if Javascript is disabled. I'd like to validate that that tag shows, but I'm unsure how to do that with any of the frameworks I have, or any framework in general.

The app in question by default shows the following when Javascript is disabled:

 <div>
  <noscript>
    <h1>Javascript Disabled</h1>
    Use this page to show content when Javascript has been disabled
  </noscript>
 </div>

The app replaces the above with the following when the script is loaded:

 <div>
   Hello World
 </div>

Right now for tests I'm using NightmareJS and Testem with jasmine. I don't have to be using those, but I'd like to still use Javascript if possible.

I'm completely stumped here and have no idea where I would even start - all the StackOverflow questions seem to be about how to USE <noscript>, and not validating it in an end-to-end or unit test (in an automated manner).

Answer 1

NightmareJS uses Electron under the hood to run the tests which doesn't seem to support passing a flag that disables Javascript, although I have to warn you that I didn't dig around that much.

... I'm using NightmareJS and Testem with jasmine. I don't have to be using those, but I'd like to still use javascript if possible.

Another solution is to use NightwatchJS instead of NightmareJS, which is a testing framework that uses ChromeDriver to drive the tests which allows disabling JS by passing prefs to Chromium.

I've written a sample project as a very basic example on how to run NightwatchJS tests with JS disabled.

The project uses the following configuration to disable JS:

nightwatch.json

{
  "test_settings" : {
    "default" : {
      "desiredCapabilities": {
        "browserName": "chrome",
        "chromeOptions" : {
          "prefs" : {
            "profile.managed_default_content_settings.javascript": 2
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

In the above configuration, it's this particular line that is passed to Chromium which hints that we want JS disabled when NighwatchJS runs the tests:

"profile.managed_default_content_settings.javascript": 2

That being said, I'd suggest you dig a bit more thoroughly in Nightmare's documentation/issues to check if you can pass the above pref through NightmareJS instead of rewriting all your tests in NightwatchJS for this little quirk.