rails3-jquery-autocomplete: how to test with RSpec and Capybara?

Finally got autocomplete tests working at least with the Selenium driver.

The solution is to put focus on the field and issue a keydown event.

I confirmed this first with manual testing in a browser. If I use the mouse (not Ctrl-V) to paste a search term into an autocomplete field, nothing happens--no drop-down pick list is displayed. This is apparently the equivalent of what happens when Capybara sends a fill_in command. However, after the term is in the field, while focus is still on the field, if I touch any key, e.g. the Shift key, the pick list appears. So apparently the pick list only appears when a key is pressed.

Option 1

One solution is to extend the function from the original question as follows:

def fill_autocomplete(field, options = {})
  fill_in field, :with => options[:with]

  page.execute_script %Q{ $('##{field}').trigger("focus") }
  page.execute_script %Q{ $('##{field}').trigger("keydown") }
  selector = "ul.ui-autocomplete a:contains('#{options[:select]}')"

  page.should have_selector selector
  page.execute_script "$(\"#{selector}\").mouseenter().click()"
end

and then call it like this:

fill_autocomplete "to_contact_name", with: "Jone", select: "Bob Jones"

Option 2

A similar approach, adapted from the Steak test in the main rails3-jquery-autocomplete gem, uses the standard fill_in, followed by this choose_autocomplete_result:

def choose_autocomplete_result(item_text, input_selector="input[data-autocomplete]")
  page.execute_script %Q{ $('#{input_selector}').trigger("focus") }
  page.execute_script %Q{ $('#{input_selector}').trigger("keydown") }
  # Set up a selector, wait for it to appear on the page, then use it.
  item_selector = "ul.ui-autocomplete li.ui-menu-item a:contains('#{item_text}')"
  page.should have_selector item_selector
  page.execute_script %Q{ $("#{item_selector}").trigger("mouseenter").trigger("click"); }
end

which is called like this:

fill_in "to_contact_name", :with => "Jone"
choose_autocomplete_result "Bob Jones", "#to_contact_name"

I've adopted the second approach for my tests. It seems pretty reliable with Selenium but doesn't work with webkit, which is too bad, since the Selenium tests are quite slow by comparison. A solution that works under webkit would be welcome!

I myself bumped into the same pain spot too. After spending few hours on this, I have one good helper that works both with selenium and polstergeist plus no usage of sleep(). The following code has been tested with Capybara 2.1.0:

  def fill_autocomplete(field, options = {})
    fill_in field, with: options[:with]

    page.execute_script %Q{ $('##{field}').trigger('focus') }
    page.execute_script %Q{ $('##{field}').trigger('keydown') }
    selector = %Q{ul.ui-autocomplete li.ui-menu-item a:contains("#{options[:select]}")}

    page.should have_selector('ul.ui-autocomplete li.ui-menu-item a')
    page.execute_script %Q{ $('#{selector}').trigger('mouseenter').click() }
  end

Basically, I tell Capybara to fill in the input field then use JS to trigger the keydown event to activate autocomplete. However instead of sleep(), I take advantage of page.should have_selector('ul.ui-autocomplete li.ui-menu-item a') that wait till the dropdown list appeared. Then I use JS to trigger the mouseenter event then click. I wish that there are better way than doing things with JS eval, but this is the most reliable solution that I could come up.

If anyone needs some code for inspiration (took me a while even after reading this thread), this works:

      context "with 5 items results" do
        before do
          5.times { FactoryGirl.create(:item, title: "chinese " + random_string(5) ) }
          page.execute_script("$('input#search_param').val('chinese')")
          page.execute_script("$('input#search_param').trigger('focus')")
          page.execute_script("$('input#search_param').trigger('keydown')")
        end
        specify { page.evaluate_script("$('input#search_param').val()").should == 'chinese' }
        specify { page.should have_css "#autocomplete-menu li", count: 5 }
      end

Thanks Mark Berry for the inspiration.