TestBeacon can also run your tests in the background (via PhantomJS) and notify you of the results via email, with screenshots, console logs, etc. We run them on your schedule on a weekly basis.
TestBeacon runs on top of Flytrap.js (http://docs.flytrap.io), the programming language used to build and drive automations. It’s just a javascript library and interprets and runs scripts written in Flytrap. Just embed a single JS file into your web app, and you’ll be able to automate the mindless clicking around during feature development. The automation can then double as a safety-net for testing & QA, and used to spot-check problematic areas post-deployment.
Let me know what you think!
I see that you have also developed a chrome extension so that one could run their tests locally. But that is essentially different from running your tests as a service. In this case you're essentially providing a testing library.
I could just about see myself writing my tests locally (perhaps using your chrome extension) and using the local tests for development and then uploading those tests and using a service to check a production server periodically. But I'm a little sceptical (why not just have the production server run the tests periodically itself?)
There may be some other uses for Web UI Automation as a service, for example scraping.
The extension actually has a crude way of uploading tests into your TestBeacon account, but that behavior is disabled/hidden for now since it is not quite production ready. This is convenient but doesn't strike at the heart of the repo issue.
I can definitely understand your general sentiment. The workflow is clunky right now, and making it not-so-clunky will be key for getting developers onboard.
I've thought about webscraping, but I feel a solution using these tools wouldn't stack up well with things like Mozenda. But I've done no research around that, so I'm running blind there. Maybe some simple machinery that goes to a URL, runs a Flytrap script, and then executes some sort of text extraction based on user's prefs.
Thank you again for your awesome feedback.
