h1. Developing Workbench

This document includes information to help developers who would like to contribute to Workbench.  If you just want to install it, please refer to our "Workbench installation guide":http://doc.arvados.org/install/install-workbench-app.html.

h2. Running tests

The Workbench application includes a series of integration tests.  When you run these, it starts the API server in a test environment, with all of its fixtures loaded, then tests Workbench by starting that server and making requests against it.

In order for this to work, you must have Firefox installed (or Iceweasel, if you're running Debian), as well as the X Virtual Frame Buffer driver.

<pre>
$ sudo apt-get install iceweasel xvfb
</pre>

If you install the Workbench Bundle in deployment mode, you must also install the API server Bundle in deployment mode, and vice versa.  If your Bundle installs have mismatched modes, the integration tests will fail with "Gem not found" errors.

h2. Writing tests

Integration tests are written with Capybara, which drives a fully-featured Web browser to interact with Workbench exactly as a user would.

If your test requires JavaScript support, your test method should start with the line @Capybara.current_driver = Capybara.javascript_driver@.  Otherwise, Capybara defaults to a simpler browser for speed.

In most tests, you can directly call "Capybara's Session methods":http://rubydoc.info/github/jnicklas/capybara/Capybara/Session to drive the browser and check its state.  If you need finer-grained control, refer to the "full Capybara documentation":http://rubydoc.info/github/jnicklas/capybara/Capybara.
