Quick Setup Refresher

Welcome to your journey with Playwright! This book will guide you through mastering this versatile tool for web testing and automation.

One of Playwright’s biggest strengths is its ability to automate browsers such as Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit with a single API, which means you can test across multiple browsers effortlessly. Another standout feature is its auto-wait mechanism, which helps reduce flaky tests by waiting for elements to be ready before interacting with them. Plus, it supports multiple languages, such as JavaScript, Python, and C#, so teams can use it in their preferred tech stack.

Before we dive into the exciting features, let’s take a few minutes to get everything set up properly. Even if you’ve used Playwright before, this chapter will make sure we’re all starting on the same page.

In this chapter, we’ll begin by installing Playwright and its dependencies to set up our development environment. Then, we’ll explore the difference between Playwright Test and the Playwright Library, which will help you understand when to use each.

Next, you’ll get hands-on experience by writing and running your first test. We’ll also cover how to configure your test environments for optimal productivity and delve into the basics of Playwright’s test runner to give you a solid foundation.

By the end of this chapter, you’ll have a fully functional Playwright setup, understand the key components, and be ready to start writing and running tests with confidence.

These are the key topics we’ll explore:

• Installing Playwright and dependencies
• Understanding the difference between Playwright Test and Playwright Library
• Writing and running your first test
• Configuring test environments
• Understanding Playwright test runner basics

Let’s get started!