Testing Times in the SSP

For a recent project we needed to establish some base line timings using selenium and the process had to be automated.  We solved this by combining Firebug and Selenium and producing HAR files.

This article outlines combing firebug and netexport which gives you a very handy export for analysing all of your timings.  Your can then use the HAR viewer to have a look and see what is going on.

Another approach which we tried was http://assertselenium.com/2012/11/02/performance-data-collection-using-browsermob-proxy-and-selenium/ – using a REST based proxy tool to record the har files.  This means you don’t have to use the firebug part so could be used cross browser.

We also are having a look at a couple of javascript based testing tools which are well worth a look:

• Casper – uses phantomJs to build a neat scripting and testing tool
• DalekJs  – a new project but one that blends at lot of interesting ideas