Geb Browser Automation Quick Start Windows

How to Stand Up a Geb Sample Application in Windows

This guide will show you step-by-step how to setup a simple Geb app to get started using the automated testing framework.  This guide focuses on using the Chrome browser for testing.  Please update chrome to the most recent version available because chromedriver only works with versions 12.0.712.0 and higher.

If you are trying to setup geb on Linux please use the following link instead:

Setting up geb on linux

Pull a copy of the Geb Sample App

 First, pull the Geb sample application from Github:

https://github.com/geb/geb-example-grails


HTTPS Clone URL:
https://github.com/geb/geb-example-grails.git

Ensure you have Chrome.exe installed in the expected location

OS	Expected Location of Chrome executable
Linux	/usr/bin/google-chrome1
Mac	/Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome
Windows XP	%HOMEPATH%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe
Windows Vista	C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe

¹ For Linux systems, the ChromeDriver expects /usr/bin/google-chrome to be a symlink to the actual Chrome binary. See also the section on overriding the Chrome binary location .

Download and Install Chrome Driver

Download the latest version of Chrome Driver:

As of 3/27/2014 the latest version for Windows is:  Download chromedriver 2.9 for Windows

For other platforms please use the list of all downloads here:

http://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/index.html

You will want to unzip chromedriver_win32.zip(or the file for your respective OS).  I unzipped mine into the C:/ drive base directory.

The chromedriver directory will contain only the chromedriver.exe executable

You will then either want to add the chromedriver location to your system path or as a VM argument.

Adding chromedriver to your system path

Windows 7:  Start -> Right-click "computer" -> Advanced system settings -> Environment Variables -> Select the PATH User variable -> Edit -> Add "C:\chromedriver_win32" or wherever you installed it to the end of your path value.

Setting the path as a VM argument

Add the running to your run configuration in your IDE:

-Dwebdriver.chrome.driver=C:\chromedriver_win32

You may have to restart your computer for these changes to be recognized

Try restarting your PC if the chromedriver executable is not being found.

For additional info, you can review the ChromeDriver Documentation here: 

 https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/chromedriver/home

The "Need Help" section contains solutions for many common problems you may encounter.

For IntelliJ IDEA users only:

There is a bug where forked tests are enabled by default which causes an issue.  Please see the following blog post on how to resolve that issue:  http://codedevstuff.blogspot.com/2014/03/run-forked-tests-in-grails-on-intellij.html

Run the application

It's now time to try running the Geb sample application.  

Add the following VM argument:

-Dgeb.env=chrome


Then run the command:

grails test-app


You should see something in the logs similar to the following if successful:

Starting ChromeDriver (v2.9.248315) on port 3826

Successful run of Geb test application

A separate instance of Chrome should start automatically with several actions such as users being added and deleted being performed.

Chromedriver in action performing automated testing

Additional Resources

Related links
Geb Home Page
Geb Github
Book of Geb



Slideshare Presentation on Geb

Geb with spock from Monika Gurram