Run in the Browser

[JerrySievert]

This one is more complicated and will most likely require a build script for optimal usage, but it would be very nice to be able to run in the browser/phantomjs.

Tagging @patrickarlt for additional input.

[patrickarlt]

A build script would definitely be the way to go here. This is pretty much how Jasmine works. It generates an html file that will run your tests when opened in a browser this makes it pretty easy to run the tests in a quick standalone manner.

As for integration with Phantom/Selenium that same html file is opened in the browser and the and the results are reported over an iframe/socket to the runner which in turn reports the pass/fail to other reporters like the console.

Thats a pretty high level overview of how it works in libraries like Jasmine (which I'm the most familiar with).

I'm almost wondering if Browserify could be leveraged to create a standalone vows.js file that could be used in a browser ill experiment with it a little as a prototype.

[patrickarlt]

I just ran a quick proof of concept trying to browserify vows and there on only a few parts that Browserify chokes on. https://github.com/cloudhead/vows/blob/master/lib/vows.js#L163-L206 and https://github.com/cloudhead/vows/blob/master/lib/vows.js#L253-L255 commenting out those lines I was able to run vows tests in a browser. There is also a point where it chokes in the console reporter but we wouldn't be using that in the browser anyway since there would be reporters created specifically for browsers.

Here is a gist with the process https://gist.github.com/patrickarlt/7607314.

[JerrySievert]

Since this will be a ground up rewrite, wondering if maybe we should not use browserify but instead just write cleanly with no major dependencies.