Native Pixelmatch

A simple visual regression solution for react-native

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Table of Contents

• Example Output
• The Problem
• The Solution
• Installation
• Getting Started
• Similar Solutions

The Problem

You are using React Native and want to write visual regression tests alongside your Detox and Appium E2E tests.

You do not want to deal with the overhead of using a Web visual regression solution for react native.

As part of your goal you want to run these visual regression tests on critical areas identified in your E2E tests to verify your code is safe before pushing code to production. You want to save your visual snapshots locally and/or compare these visual snapshots in a CI.

The Solution

Introducing native-pixelmatch a lightweight solution for visual regression on the react-native platform.

• Allows for smooth integration with Detox and Appium test runners
• Able to quickly take snapshots during E2E tests and perform visual regression testing

Example output

expected	actual	diff

Installation

npm npm install --save-dev native-pixelmatch

yarn yarn add -D native-pixelmatch

Getting Started

Import native-pixelmatch and save the library's config prototype as a exportable variable

import nativePixelMatch from 'native-pixelmatch'

export const screenshotConfig = new nativePixelMatch(
	'temp',
	'shots',
	'screenshot_testing',
	'detox',
)

Import this exported config throughout the project

describe('App', () => {
	it('should create a picture', () => {
		screenshotConfig.createScreenshot('App', App-Button-Click)
		screenshotConfig.pixelDiff('App', App-Button-Click)
	})
})

Similar Solutions

• Loki Storybook Visual Diffing

Other Notes:

• This library uses the lightweight pixelmatch library.
• In the future there will be an option to opt into [GraphicsMagick](http://www.graphicsmagick.org/