slimerjs-edge

Slimerjs-edge is a fork of the slimerjs npm package which installs the most recently updated nightly version of SlimerJS. Use with caution.

npm install slimerjs-edge

slimerjs

An NPM wrapper for the edge version of SlimerJS, a scriptable browser for web development and testing.

SlimerJS runs on Gecko, the browser engine behind Mozilla Firefox, and aims to be a simple, drop-in replacement for phantomjs. Because SlimerJS uses the version of firefox passed in the SLIMERJSLAUNCHER environment variable, edge builds of firefox can be used. This can be useful for viewing and testing modern web functionality which is not yet available in phantomjs.

Building and Installing

npm install slimerjs

Or grab the source and

node ./install.js

What this is really doing is just grabbing a particular "blessed" (by this module) version of Slimer. As new versions of Slimer are released and vetted, this module will be updated accordingly.

The package has been set up to fetch and run Slimer for MacOS (darwin), Linux based platforms (as identified by nodejs), and -- as of version 0.2.0 -- Windows (thanks to Domenic Denicola). If you spot any platform weirdnesses, let us know or send a patch.

Running

bin/slimerjs [slimer arguments]

And npm will install a link to the binary in node_modules/.bin as it is wont to do.

Running via node

The package exports a path string that contains the path to the slimerjs binary/executable.

Below is an example of using this package via node.

var path = require('path')
var childProcess = require('child_process')
var slimerjs = require('slimerjs')
var binPath = slimerjs.path
 
var childArgs = [
  path.join(__dirname, 'slimerjs-script.js'),
  'some other argument (passed to slimerjs script)'
]
 
childProcess.execFile(binPath, childArgs, function(err, stdout, stderr) {
  // handle results
})
 

Versioning

The NPM package version tracks the version of SlimerJS that will be installed, with an additional build number that is used for revisions to the installer.

As such 0.9.1-1 and 0.9.1-2 will both install SlimerJs 0.9.1 but the latter has newer changes to the installer.

A Note on SlimerJS

SlimerJS is not a library for NodeJS. It's a separate environment and code written for node is unlikely to be compatible. In particular SlimerJS does not expose a Common JS package loader.

This is an NPM wrapper and can be used to conveniently make Slimer available It is not a Node JS wrapper.

Standalone SlimerJS scripts can be driven from within a node program by spawning SlimerJS in a child process.

Read the SlimerJS FAQ for more details: http://slimerjs.org/faq.html

Contributing

Questions, comments, bug reports, and pull requests are all welcome. Submit them at the project on GitHub.

Bug reports that include steps-to-reproduce (including code) are the best. Even better, make them in the form of pull requests.

Author

Dan Pupius (personal website), supported by The Obvious Corporation.

License

Copyright 2012 The Obvious Corporation.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. See the top-level file LICENSE.txt and (http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0).