Browser features in VS Code

VS Code’s windows are ordinary Browser pages, so most Browser keywords work on them. These results come from VS Code 1.141 under Xvfb, with Browser on Playwright 1.63. Most of them apply to other Electron applications as well.

Overview

Feature	Status	Notes
Take Screenshot of the window or an element, screenshots on failure	Works	Screenshots have the window’s size.
Videos (record_video)	Works	See Videos and slow motion.
Get Aria Snapshot, role selectors such as Get Element By Role	Works	Useful to find locators.
Evaluate JavaScript, Wait For Function	Works	They run in the workbench’s page, not in the extension host.
Keyboard, mouse and Hover keywords	Works	Shortcuts with ControlOrMeta work on every platform.
Copy and paste in the editor	Works
Get Console Log, Get Page Errors	Works	The workbench’s console messages.
Highlight Elements, Set Presenter Mode	Works	Presenter mode also serves as slow motion.
A second window: Switch Page NEW, Close Page	Works	See windows.robot in the example.
Locator handlers (Add Locator Handler Custom)	Works	See below.
Start Coverage, Stop Coverage	Works	JavaScript coverage of the workbench.
Set Viewport Size	Works	It emulates the size; Get Viewport Size returns nothing before it is set.
Drag And Drop in the explorer	Needs a setting	explorer.confirmDragAndDrop: false, otherwise VS Code asks for confirmation.
File dialogs	Needs a setting	files.simpleDialog.enable: true makes VS Code use its own dialog.
Maximised windows	Needs a window manager	See CI and the Linux display.
Native dialogs and message boxes	Does not work	They are outside the page.
Save Page As PDF	Does not work	Electron does not provide Chromium’s PDF printing (Page.printToPDF).
Playwright’s slowMo	Does not work	Playwright has no slowMo for Electron; use presenter mode.
HAR recording and tracing	Not available	There are no keywords for them in Electron applications yet.

Snippets

The example project uses many of these features. The following snippets show the others; they assume a VS Code opened with Open VS Code.

An aria snapshot of a part of the workbench lists its roles and names:

${snapshot} =    Get Aria Snapshot    .activitybar

The workbench’s console messages and page errors:

${messages} =    Get Console Log
${errors} =    Get Page Errors

A locator handler closes notifications before every Browser action. The close button of a notification is shown only when the notification is in focus, so the handler first clicks the message and then the button:

Add Locator Handler Custom    .notifications-toasts .notification-toast
...    ${{ [{"action": "click", "selector": ".notifications-toasts .notification-list-item-message"}, {"action": "click", "selector": ".notifications-toasts .notification-toast .codicon-notifications-clear"}] }}

Moving a file into a folder in the explorer, with explorer.confirmDragAndDrop set to false in the settings of Open VS Code:

Drag And Drop    .explorer-folders-view >> text="notes.txt"    .explorer-folders-view >> text="archive"

JavaScript coverage of the workbench while a command runs:

Start Coverage
Run Command    Robot Example: Say Hello
${report} =    Stop Coverage