Protractor to dynamically choose browser based on input

Question

I am new to protractor and I want to be able to run my chrome browser painted or headless.

So I set up something like this

 let chrome = {
     browserName: 'chrome',
     platform: 'MAC',
     'max-duration': '1800',

 };

let chromeHeadless = {
     browserName: 'chrome',     
    chromeOptions: {
      args: [ "--headless", "--disable-gpu", "--window-size=800,600" ]
    }
};

browserDefault = browser.params.browserToUse

exports.config = {
   params: {

    'browserToUse': "get from user'

   },
   capabilities: browserDefault,
 }

and i ran this code as

 protractor config.js --params.browserToUse='chromeHeadless' 

But this does not work. Protractor fails saying it does not understand "browser.params.browserInput". Whats the right way to make protractor dynamically choose chrome or chromeheadless based on the input

Answer 1

The global variable browser is only init when code run into onPrepare(). You used browser outside onPrepare() function, browser have not been inited, it is undefined, so you met the error.

Another point you need to get it's when the variable browser inited, a browser window has been opened, means protractor has know which capabilities to launch the browser. Therefore you can't use browser.params.xxx to specify which capabilities, you need to tell protractor the capabilities before it init the browser variable.

let capabilitiesMap = {
    'chrome-headful' : {
        browserName: 'chrome',
        platform: 'MAC',
        'max-duration': '1800',   
    },

    'chrome-headless': {
        browserName: 'chrome',     
        chromeOptions: {
          args: [ "--headless", "--disable-gpu", "--window-size=800,600" ]
        }
    }
};

let browserToUse = 'chrome-headful'; // set default value

// extract the browserToUse value from cli
process.argv.slice(3).forEach(function(arg) {
    var name = arg.split('=')[0];
    var value = arg.split('=')[1];
    var name = name.replace('--', '');

    if (name === 'browserToUse') {
        if (Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty.call(capabilitiesMap, value) ) {
            browserToUse = value;
        }
    } 
});


let config = {

    seleniumAddress: '',
    specs: [],
    onPrepare: function() {}

};

config.capabilities = capabilitiesMap[browserToUse];

exports.config = config;

CLI example: protractor conf.js --browserToUse=chrome-headless