Robot Framework IDE on Mac

[Mojito Blue]

Hi guys,

So recently I got a MacBook Air, runing MacOS Sierra version 10.12.6.

Before that, I used to use RIDE on Windows smoothly without any issue so far.

But then today, I tried to install RIDE on MacOS but seems like it is impossible when wxPython is not available to install.

So I would like to ask, in my case, I already familiar with RIDE, is there any workaround method?

If there arent, I have to use Pycharm with Pibot plugin, right? How is that method comparing to RIDE?

[Hélio Guilherme]

Hi,

I am doing some development to get RIDE ready for new wxPython (and also for Python 3). If you are willing to use experimental packages, you could:

1- Install wxPython 4.0.0 (beta2 or release candidate) --> sudo -H pip install wxPython

2- Install RIDE from my fork and development branch (python3) -->  sudo -H pip install https://github.com/HelioGuilherme66/RIDE/archive/python3.zip

There are known problems, for example the current key shortcut to get the Context Help is Command-M which causes a beep (removed Command-Space).

(If you know of a better key combination, preferably the same for different OSes, please tell me)

You can have RIDE installed on Python 2.7 and Robot Framework on Python 3. Test runner will use the first robot it finds.
It is almost ready to use in Python 3 (just some bugs with the cell editor).

About PyCharm, using the plugins you'll get syntax colorization, I don't know if the test runner is as good as in RIDE. I use the Editor, and then the shell window to run the tests.

You may also like to know that there is the Sublime Text plugin for Robot Framework (I don't know about the test runner, but I'm sure that Tatu Aalto will say something about this ;) ).  

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awsome-lists gretl meld robotframework wxPython
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[Bryan Oakley]

You don't  have to use pycharm. Robot files are plain text files, you can use any editor you want, if it's capable of reading and writing plain text files. There are editors such as pycharm that are aware of robot syntax, but those are a convenience rather than a necessity.

[Zeff Morgan]

Mojito ...

Sorry I can't help with RIDE. I'm with Bryan. I'm on a Mac myself, and I never liked the 'IDE' experiences. I did try PyCharm and found it to be quite flaky, sadly, but I owe it another try because it's been a couple years and I'm starting to do more straight Python. 

My personal opinion is that RobotFramework doesn't need anything that fancy to be able to write code in. I've toyed with several text editors, lately with MS Code and Atom. I find the plugins on Atom to be a little more stable and I use that for all of my web programming (JS, React, Electron, Node, etc.). I've added a little more info if you want to try that route.

Pros:

• I really like the clean text editor approach. I've never been a fan of IDE's except for GUI programming (Windows, really) as it can take almost as much mental effort to learn them as it does how to write the code in the first place. With a text editor, it just works and generally stays out of the way. RF fits in great with that approach to writing code.
• It's easy to take your work with you to wherever you go, whether you are in Windows/Mac/Linux. I try to not let my environment determine my effectiveness.
• You can load it out with all the bells and whistles you want. And you can write your own if there's something you feel like you really need.

I have two dislikes:

• When you enable keyword hyperlinking, the existing plugin isn't 'great' at it. Sometimes it takes you right to the keyword, but sometimes it's just the file that you created it in. Since I keep my projects pretty modular, that's not a deal breaker for me.
  
• Autocompletion is a little overzealous and I still occasionally forget to hit escape when I don't want its suggestion. Grr.

I also run my tests from the terminal. I did set up a bash function that takes parameters, but it's really just as easy to type it out. 

For Atom, I use the following packages to get syntax highlighting, autocompletion, and keyword hyperlinking:

• language-robot-framework
• autocomplete-robot-framework
• hyperclick
• hyperclick-robot-framework

Hope that helps if you decide to take that leap.

Zeff

[Mojito Blue]

Hello Guilherme,

It's greate to know that RIDE is being maintained and improved. I will give it a try and respond feedback soon.

Thank you very much.

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[Mojito Blue]

Thank Zeff, 

Me myself is already familiar with the R-IDE and found it is very helpful.

Perhaps it is time to jump on new experience with plain text editor. :)

Thank you.

[Krzysztof Jozefowicz]

Hi
If you need a table-like editor, RED Robot Editor is the only contender here - table editors looks similar to RIDE,editing in tables does not wrap around and force-clean source robot files like in RIDE.
Apart from table editors,there is a source editor with validation,code completion, keyword help (show docs and jump to keyword definition,runtime debugger and many more.
RED requirements: Java 1.8+, installed python interpreter (python,jython,ironpython etc.) with robot.

latest release:
https://github.com/nokia/RED/releases/tag/0.8.0

[Zeff Morgan]

Mojito, no problem. 

And I don't mean to come across as being negative about IDE's. I strive to be as pragmatic as possible. If RIDE or RED or whatever IDE you use makes you more effective, more efficient, or it just clicks, then go for it. And sometimes it just makes sense ... Visual Studio for Windows apps, IntellijIDEA for Java, etc. IDE's in some circumstances can make you more productive.

Let us know how your experience turns out.

[Zeff Morgan]

Thanks Krzysztof. I completely forgot about RED.

I take it that it's something you use regularly? It'd be nice to hear what you like about the features you mention (how well they work?) and if there are any caveats or difficulties. Let us know if you are able to expand on that. We'd appreciate being able to benefit from your experience.

[Krzysztof Jozefowicz]

Hi
We (team in Nokia) develops RED since beginning so fell free to ask anything about it.
There is ongoing trend to replace RIDE (python dependency,lack of features, forced code reformat after every table edit) to RED in tester teams so we have a list of requests in the backlog to fulfil testers wishes and RED development will not stop in a while.

I am a fan of text source editor, I use table editors rarely - this is also a feedback from other users which prefers source over tables. Table editors are fully usable,I would say on pair with what RIDE provides although we mostly focus on source/overall features rather than tables. If you see anything which is missing in table editors,let us know on GitHub so we can evaluate it.

Overall, Eclipse usage is a bit different than RIDE (concepts of workspace,projects and perspectives is something which RIDE does not have) but if you worked with pyCharm there are similarities.
Release package is not large on today's standards ( ~80mb zipped/~200mb unzipped),it provides full fledged robot IDE together with possibility to install other eclipse plugins (IDE for other languages,source version controls etc.).
From basic features code completion works good,validation is grate to catch errors before test execution. If you are more advanced user, you may like Debug option which helps to check step by step what is happening during Robot testcase run,there is a in-house solution to configure RED in such way that tester is working locally with testfiles but tests are executed on remote machine/testline (if you had to work over VNC/RDP or SSH you may know the latency/response problem).
In upcoming 0.8.1 release we will provide a way to run static analysis on robot code using rflint, also support for dark theme/darkest dark plugin will be provided.
If you have any specific questions feel free.