This is a Node.js package that provides a Zombie.js shim around the PhantomJS headless browser. The motivation behind this package is that when looking for a headless browser solution, I really liked the API of Zombie.js as well as the full Node.js support behind it, however it is not a full WebKit browser. PhantomJS on the other hand is a better technology in terms of headless browser, but does not have a native Node.js integration. The Node Phantom package integrates the PhantomJS into the Node.js framework, but what it doesn't do, and likely so, is provide a better API like the Zombie.js framework.

This package simply attempts to act as a drop-in replacement for Zombie.js but using the PhantomJS headless browser.

NOTE: THIS PACKAGE IS STILL INCOMPLETE AND IS NOT A FULL DROP-IN REPLACEMENT FOR ZOMBIE.JS

Install node.js by going to http://nodejs.org

Install PhantomJS by going to http://phantomjs.org/download.html

Install this package using Node Package Manager (npm)

npm install zombie-phantom

Using this library is going to be 'similar' to using Zombie.js. I couldn't make it an exact replica of Zombie.js due to the nature of the asynchronous behavior of interacting with any API within PhantomJS. For example, to get the text of an element on the page looks like the following in both Zombie.js and this module.

Zombie.js

var Browser = require('zombie');
var browser = new Browser({
  site: 'http://localhost:8888'
});

browser.visit('/user/login', function() {
  var text = browser.text('h1');
  console.log(text);
});

Whereas in Zombie-Phantom, everything is asynchronous... like so.

Zombie-Phantom

var Browser = require('zombie-phantom');
var browser = new Browser({
  site: 'http://localhost:8888'
});

browser.visit('/user/login', function() {
  browser.text('h1', function(text) {
    console.log(text);
  });
});

Another big difference is that this library does not return actual DOM elements which you can use to manipulate. It does however, return an index into a DOM array within the PhantomJS browser which you can use to perform the same actions as you would with Zombie.js. It is easier to think of this index as a DOM element ID which you return back to the library to do stuff... Here is an example.

var _ = require('underscore');
var async = require('async');
var Browser = require('zombie');
var browser = new Browser({
  site: 'http://localhost:8888'
});

browser.visit('/user/login', function() {
  browser.query('h1.title', function(title) {

    // title is actually an ID to a DOM element here, not an actual element.
    // But, I can still pass it along to the browser API like I would and it
    // will still work by referencing the DOM element within PhantomJS.
    browser.xpath('..//label', title, function(labels) {

      // labels is actually just an array of ID's here, but I can still use them
      _.each(labels, function(label) {
        drupal.browser.text(label, function(text) {
          console.log(text);
        });
      });
    });
  });
});

As you can tell, the promise system from Zombie.js has not been implemented, however, you can replicate this functionality using the Async.js library. Here is an example of using the promises from async to turn what was once callback hell into an easy to follow series of executions.

example.js

var Browser = require('zombie-phantom');
var async = require('async');

var browser = new Browser({
  site: 'http://localhost:8888'
});

// Current this library does not support promises, but you can use async.series
// to get something similar...

async.series([
  function(done) { browser.visit('/user/login', done); },
  function(done) { browser.fill('#user-name', 'admin', done); },
  function(done) { browser.fill('#user-pass', '123password', done); },
  function(done) { browser.pressButton('#edit-submit', done); },
  function(done) { browser.visit('/node/add/article', done); },
  function(done) { browser.fill('#edit-title', 'This is a test!', done); },
  function(done) { browser.pressButton('#edit-submit', done) }
], function() {
  console.log('Content Created!');
  browser.close();
});

Please contribute to make this project better.