How to use playwright browser library with Robot Framework

Let’s go step-by-step through using the Browser Library with Robot Framework, which is the modern alternative to SeleniumLibrary.

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🌐 Robot Framework Browser Library — Full Guide

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🚀 1️⃣ What is Browser Library?

Browser Library is a modern web automation library for Robot Framework built on top of Microsoft Playwright (not Selenium).

It allows you to automate Chromium, Firefox, WebKit, and Edge browsers with:

• Faster execution
• Auto-wait for elements
• Headless or headed modes
• Better error handling and trace logs

👉 It’s the official Robot Framework Browser maintained by the Robot Framework Foundation.

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⚙️ 2️⃣ Installation Steps

🧩 Step 1: Install Node.js

Playwright (used internally by Browser Library) requires Node.js. Download and install from https://nodejs.org

Verify installation:

node -v
npm -v

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🧩 Step 2: Install Robot Framework and Browser Library

pip install robotframework-browser

Then initialize the library (downloads browsers + dependencies):

rfbrowser init

This command will:

• Install Playwright browsers (Chromium, Firefox, WebKit)
• Configure them for Robot Framework use

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✅ Step 3: Verify Installation

Run:

robot --version

and

rfbrowser --help

Both should work without error.

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🧠 3️⃣ Basic Concepts

Term	Description
Browser	A Playwright browser instance (e.g., Chrome, Firefox)
Context	An isolated environment (like an incognito tab)
Page	A single browser tab
Auto-wait	Waits automatically for elements to be visible/enabled before acting

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🧪 4️⃣ Example Test Case

Create a file: tests/browser_example.robot

*** Settings ***
Library    Browser

*** Variables ***
${URL}    https://example.com

*** Test Cases ***
Open Example Page And Verify Title
    New Browser    chromium
    New Context
    New Page    ${URL}
    Get Title    ==    Example Domain
    Close Browser

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🧩 5️⃣ Key Browser Library Keywords

Keyword	Purpose
New Browser	Launches browser (chromium, firefox, webkit)
New Context	Creates isolated session (like incognito)
New Page	Opens a new tab or page
Click	Clicks element
Fill Text	Fills input field
Get Text	Reads element text
Get Title	Gets page title
Close Browser	Closes everything
Wait For Elements State	Waits for element visibility/enabled state

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🧪 6️⃣ Example — Login Test

*** Settings ***
Library    Browser

*** Variables ***
${URL}    https://example.com/login
${USERNAME}    test_user
${PASSWORD}    mypass123

*** Test Cases ***
Login Test
    New Browser    chromium    headless=${False}
    New Context
    New Page    ${URL}
    Fill Text    input[name="username"]    ${USERNAME}
    Fill Text    input[name="password"]    ${PASSWORD}
    Click    button[type="submit"]
    Wait For Elements State    text=Welcome    visible
    Get Text    h1    ==    Welcome
    Close Browser

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🧰 7️⃣ Advanced Features

▶️ a) Headless or Headed Mode

New Browser    chromium    headless=${False}

▶️ b) Screenshots

Take Screenshot    filename=results/screenshot.png

▶️ c) Multiple Tabs (Pages)

New Page    https://softpost.org
New Page    https://openai.com
Switch Page    https://softpost.org

▶️ d) Parallel Testing

Each test case can launch its own browser context for true parallelism.

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📊 8️⃣ Running Tests

robot tests/browser_example.robot

Results will generate:

• log.html
• report.html
• output.xml

Example:

==============================================================================
Tests.Browser Example
==============================================================================
Open Example Page And Verify Title                                 | PASS |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tests.Browser Example                                              | PASS |
1 test, 1 passed, 0 failed
==============================================================================

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🧩 9️⃣ Compare with SeleniumLibrary

Feature	Browser (Playwright)	SeleniumLibrary
Engine	Playwright	Selenium WebDriver
Auto-wait	✅ Built-in	❌ Manual
Parallel tests	✅ Easy with contexts	⚠️ Requires setup
Browser drivers	❌ Not needed	✅ Needed
Cross-browser	Chromium, Firefox, WebKit	Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari
Speed	⚡ Faster	🐢 Slower
Trace & Debug	✅ Excellent	⚠️ Limited

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🧠 10️⃣ Debugging and Tracing

Enable tracing to capture screenshots, steps, and console logs:

*** Settings ***
Library    Browser

Suite Setup    Start Tracing
Suite Teardown    Stop Tracing    results/trace.zip

After test run, open the trace:

rfbrowser show-trace results/trace.zip

This will open an interactive UI showing each step, DOM snapshot, and screenshot (similar to Playwright trace viewer).

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💡 11️⃣ When to Use Browser Library

✅ Modern web apps (React, Angular, Vue) ✅ Rich AJAX or dynamic content ✅ Parallel tests or cloud execution ✅ CI/CD pipelines where speed matters

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🧮 12️⃣ Summary

Category	Detail
Library	Browser (Playwright-based)
Command to Install	pip install robotframework-browser
Init Command	rfbrowser init
Browsers Supported	Chromium, Firefox, WebKit
Parallel Execution	Supported via contexts
Best For	Modern, dynamic web automation
Reports	HTML log/report generated by Robot Framework

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