As mentioned in commits like a586ba806, a7664ad81, 006128da5, b41fbfa52
and c480cdd91, accessing the database after starting the browser with
the `visit` method sometimes results in database corruption and failing
tests on our CI due to the process running the test accessing the
database after the process running the browser has started.
In these cases, there's no need to check the database; we're already
checking the application behavior that shows that the voters have been
correctly created.
We were always passing `officer.user` to this method, so we might as
well pass the officer (since the "officer" is in the name of the method)
and call `officer.user` inside the method.
We're also calling `login_through_form_as` in order to remove the
duplication between these two methods.
This way it's more obvious what's going on.
Note that, in this case, the expectations were **not** true before
visiting the page, so we aren't fixing a flaky test.
We were doing it most of the time, but in some cases we were clicking
the "Sign out" link instead. These actions aren't the same, just like
using `login_as` is not the same as visiting the sign in page and
submitting the form.
Some of these tests failed sometimes because the user wasn't signed in
after using `login_as`. One possible cause could be that we weren't
adding an expectation after clicking the "Sign out" link.
So using `logout` adds consistency, simplifies the code, and might
reduce the chance of these tests failing in the future (although they
might still fail in the future because some of these tests check the
database after a `visit` call).
Defining a behavior on hover means making it different for people using
a keyboard or a touchscreen (most of the population, nowadays).
In this case, we had an accessibility issue where the message wouldn't
disappear once it appeared. That meant that, after tabbing through all
the links and buttons in, for instance, the debates index, the page
would be filled with "participation not allowed" messages, and in order
to see the information about how many people have voted, reloading the
page was required.
For touchscreen users the behavior was similar to what we get on hover,
although we've found some inconsistencies when trying to support several
elements on the same page.
We think in proposals it makes sense to hide the "support" button when
users click on it, and the same applies to the buttonsto support and
vote investment projects. However, we aren't hiding the buttons to
agree/disagree with a debate in order to keep the information about the
current number of people agreeing and disagreeing visible.
Note we're removing some support spec methods because after these
changes the duplication isn't as obvious as it was in the past.
As mentioned in commits 5311daadf and bb958daf0, using links combined
with JavaScript to generate POST requests to the server has a few
issues.
We're also improving the keyboard access. Previously, the links were
focusable and clickable with the keyboard. Now we're disabling the
buttons when voting isn't allowed.
Since these elements can no longer be focused, we're adding an element
with `tabindex="0"` so the "participation not allowed" message is shown,
like we do in most places.
Note we're slightly changing one test because now when hovering over the
button on Chrome, the "participation not allowed" text isn't shown; it's
only shown when hovering on the parts of the `div.ballot` element
outside the button. Since we're already rewriting the behavior of the
"participation not allowed" text in a different pull request, we aren't
going to fix this behavior.
Checking the database with methods like Activity.last does not test that
the record is present where it should be (first record of the table in
this case). In these tests there's only one record, though, so the order
doesn't matter that match.
However, calling methods like Activity.last generates a database query
after the process running the browser has been started, and this might
lead to inconsistent data.
JavaScript is used by about 98% of web users, so by testing without it
enabled, we're only testing that the application works for a very
reduced number of users.
We proceeded this way in the past because CONSUL started using Rails 4.2
and truncating the database between JavaScript tests with database
cleaner, which made these tests terribly slow.
When we upgraded to Rails 5.1 and introduced system tests, we started
using database transactions in JavaScript tests, making these tests much
faster. So now we can use JavaScript tests everywhere without critically
slowing down our test suite.
We've had a failure in one of our test suite runs [1]. A possible cause
could be an HTTP request taking place at the same time as an AJAX
request, with both trying to access the database at the same time.
We've had several similar issues in the past which have been fixed by
checking the AJAX request has finished before requesting another page,
so we're applying the same principle here.
[1] https://github.com/consul/consul/runs/1855207922
These tests were supposed to check the link to vote is hidden when users
don't have permission to vote. However, they aren't testing that, since
the `visible: false` option also matches visible elements. The links are
actually considered visible since they're displayed by the browser;
there's just another element on top of them.
Using `obscured: true` instead of `visible: false` solves the issue.
However, while the `obscured` option is true when the element is hidden
by another element, it's also true when the element is not currently
visible in the browser window, so in some cases we need to scroll so the
condition is effective.
