[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":390},["ShallowReactive",2],{"project-6914092":3},{"id":4,"name":5,"line":6,"line_source":7,"title":8,"url":9,"domain":10,"maker":11,"posted_at":12,"year":13,"points":14,"comments":15,"rank_in_year":16,"shown_in_year":17,"top":18,"tier":19,"category":20,"subcategory":21,"format":22,"keywords":23,"reception":28,"sentiment":29,"stance_mix":30,"scored_comments":35,"aspects":36,"strip":42,"post_text":43,"what":44,"said":101,"maker_in_thread":196,"shape":207,"grid":212,"attempts":353,"same_week":354,"maker_shows":38,"maker_hidden":382,"reader_version":383,"card":384},"6914092","Helium","Simple web automation","title","Show HN: Helium - Simple web automation","http:\u002F\u002Fheliumhq.com","heliumhq.com","mherrmann",1387193259,2013,48,65,526,1739,31,"shown","dev_tools","web automation library","library",[24,25,26,27],"web automation","selenium","browser testing","python automation","curious",-0.143,{"positive":31,"neutral":32,"mixed":33,"critical":34},3,18,1,6,28,{"pricing":37,"idea":39,"execution":41},{"positive":33,"critical":38},5,{"positive":40,"critical":33},0,{"positive":40,"critical":40},[33,31,40,33,31,31,31,31,40,31,33,40,40,31,31,38,40,33,31,33,33,40,40,31,40,31,40,38,31,40,31,31,31,40,31,38,31,40,40,40],"Hi everyone,\n\nI'm working for a startup called BugFree Software and would love to hear your feedback on a new product we are launching today.\n\nHelium is a library that wraps around Selenium to simplify web automation. It does away with many of the technicalities involved with web scripting. For example: Here is a Selenium script. Can you guess what it does?\n\n\n```\n    >>> ff = Firefox()\n    ...\n    >>> text_area = ff.find_element_by_id(\"u_0_1q\")\n    >>> text_area.send_keys(\"Hello World!\")\n    >>> button = ff.find_element_by_class_name(\"_42g-\")\n    >>> button.click()\n\n```\n\nHere is the same scrip",{"problem":45,"audience":54,"pricing":60,"motivation":74,"time_to_build":80,"stack":81,"openness":98,"stage":99,"team_size":100},{"value":46,"source":47,"evidence":48},"Selenium scripts are verbose and technical to write for web automation","maker",[49,51],{"id":50},"post",{"id":52,"by":11,"text":53},"6914750","Good question. It can't do anything that Selenium can't, but it's a lot easier to work with. It's like developing in Assembler vs developing in C: Both are equally powerful in…",{"value":55,"source":47,"evidence":56},"Developers and testers doing light scripting for web automation",[57],{"id":58,"by":11,"text":59},"6917305","I would say it's aimed at anyone willing to do light programming \u002F scripting. I don't think a particular role within a company precludes this. (Sorry for the late reply by the…",{"value":61,"source":62,"evidence":63},"Subscription of about $200 per year per machine, with floating licenses planned and a free tweet-for-license option","commenter",[64,68,71],{"id":65,"by":66,"text":67},"6914817","oblio","I hope you succeed with your project, but sorry, I feel that your pricing is batshit insane, pardon my French. $200 per year subscription for 1 machine for the basic license with…",{"id":69,"by":11,"text":70},"6916503","I see. I'm very sorry to hear that you are so frustrated with the licensing scheme. We should also offer \"floating\" licenses which are not tied to a particular machine. Would…",{"id":72,"by":11,"text":73},"6918125","We have now added a Social License to our Purchase page (http:\u002F\u002Fheliumhq.com\u002Fpurchase). It gives everyone who tweets about Helium a free license!",{"value":75,"source":47,"evidence":76},"Quit day jobs to build it and need income to sustain development",[77],{"id":78,"by":11,"text":79},"6914481","We quit our daytime jobs to work on this project and have to live off something... Maybe you have a suggestion as to what we could do to allow us to sustain our development in…",null,[82,91],{"value":83,"source":47,"evidence":84},"Python",[85,88],{"id":86,"by":11,"text":87},"6914469","Several things. I claim it's still more high level than Capybara. And it's available for languages other than Ruby. Right now, you can download it for Python. But we'll also…",{"id":89,"by":11,"text":90},"6914575","The answer is simple: Helium is lighter than Selenium! ;-) You can already use it today by downloading from http:\u002F\u002Fheliumhq.com\u002Fdownload. Thanks for the kind words!",{"value":92,"source":47,"evidence":93},"Selenium",[94,95],{"id":50},{"id":96,"by":11,"text":97},"6914518","Hi, thanks for the suggestions! I'll discuss them with my colleagues. CSS selectors are supported, because Helium is fully compatible with Selenium. Eg.: You can say…","paid","launched","company",{"praise":102,"objections":114,"requests":137,"questions":157,"alternatives":177},[103],{"value":104,"source":62,"evidence":105},"Interesting and clean approach to simplifying Selenium",[106,110],{"id":107,"by":108,"text":109},"6914337","lfx","Hey, looks nice. Wonder how lib is detecting inputs by \"user-visible labels\". Looks by html structure, or uses some \"magic\" methods?",{"id":111,"by":112,"text":113},"6914322","Taurenking","this seems an iteresting project...how does the click() function work? Is it possible to automate other actions beside the ones in the example?",[115,122,126],{"value":116,"source":62,"evidence":117},"Per-machine licensing is impractical for developers working across multiple machines",[118],{"id":119,"by":120,"text":121},"6915801","teh_klev","First of all let me say that I have no problem with paying for software, even closed source or otherwise. I already pay a chunk of personal money for JetBrains tools and stuff…",{"value":123,"source":62,"evidence":124},"Pricing is too high and subscription model is unappealing",[125],{"id":65,"by":66,"text":67},{"value":127,"source":62,"evidence":128},"Closed source development tool is unfavourable on HN",[129,133],{"id":130,"by":131,"text":132},"6914309","mapleoin","Closed source development tools with a EULA? What is this? 1995?",{"id":134,"by":135,"text":136},"6914881","adambenayoun","@mherrmann - There are various ways you could monetize Helium and be open source - here are a few ideas. All of them assume that you will be open sourcing your code. The reason…",[138,146,150],{"value":139,"source":62,"evidence":140},"Open source the code",[141,142],{"id":134,"by":135,"text":136},{"id":143,"by":144,"text":145},"6915033","Edmond","I read through the comments and see you are catching a lot of flack for being closed source and daring to charge. My advice, do what you think makes sense for your company. You…",{"value":147,"source":62,"evidence":148},"Floating licenses not tied to one machine",[149],{"id":119,"by":120,"text":121},{"value":151,"source":62,"evidence":152},"Support CSS selectors as fallback",[153],{"id":154,"by":155,"text":156},"6914496","briancray","I would suggest also allowing CSS selectors as a fallback. Text changes often whereas a selector will change less often, producing a more reliable point of interaction. I would…",[158,162],{"value":159,"source":62,"evidence":160},"How does it locate elements by visible labels",[161],{"id":107,"by":108,"text":109},{"value":163,"source":62,"evidence":164},"What does it offer beyond Selenium or Capybara",[165,169,173],{"id":166,"by":167,"text":168},"6914406","hipsters_unite","A question (not meant facetiously) but what's the benefit of this over say, Capybara\u002Fwebrat, which already has the click and fill_in human readable methods? The block of example…",{"id":170,"by":171,"text":172},"6914678","devspade","Trying to figure out what this gives me that Selenium doesn't? If I already have a large code base using Selenium why should I switch?",{"id":174,"by":175,"text":176},"6915263","duked","Hi, I like the idea and I used watir [0] in the best to do a lot of automation but I fail to see what's different with Helium. Can you please tell me what are the differences…",[178,185,192],{"value":179,"source":62,"evidence":180},"Capybara",[181,182],{"id":166,"by":167,"text":168},{"id":183,"by":11,"text":184},"6914867","I'd be curious to hear which other open source frameworks \"do the exact same thing\". I spent hours compiling a list of competition products, and none can really offer an approach…",{"value":186,"source":62,"evidence":187},"CasperJS",[188],{"id":189,"by":190,"text":191},"6914912","egeozcan","Using CasperJS, you get more or less the same. http:\u002F\u002Fdocs.casperjs.org\u002Fen\u002Flatest\u002Fmodules\u002Fcasper.html#clicklabel",{"value":193,"source":62,"evidence":194},"Watir",[195],{"id":174,"by":175,"text":176},{"comments":197,"answered":198,"key":199},25,13,[200,201,204],{"id":69,"text":70},{"id":202,"text":203},"6920574","I can see the attraction of JetBrains' style of license. We'll look into this. It's not our first foray into licensing and we actually have offered a \"floating\" licensing scheme…",{"id":205,"text":206},"6914960","Thank you for the honest feedback and the good wishes. Here's why we think our subscription model makes sense: In our evaluation (heliumhq.com\u002FAutomatingGmailWithHelium.pdf),…",{"commenters":208,"max_depth":209,"maker_replies":197,"first_comment_mins":210,"lifespan_hours":211},22,10,57,67,[213,215,217,219,220,221,222,226,229,231,233,235,237,239,242,245,247,249,252,254,257,259,261,263,265,267,270,272,275,277,279,283,285,286,288,291,293,295,297,298,299,302,303,304,308,310,311,313,316,318,320,323,325,326,330,331,333,335,337,340,342,345,347,349,351],[119,40,33,214,120,40],"project\u002Fcritical\u002Fpricing",[69,40,40,216,11,33],"project\u002Fneutral\u002Fpricing",[218,40,31,216,120,40],"6920441",[202,40,40,216,11,33],[65,33,33,214,66,40],[205,33,40,216,11,33],[223,33,31,224,225,40],"6915210","maker\u002Fneutral\u002Fnone","hyp0",[227,33,40,228,11,33],"6915232","commenter\u002Fneutral\u002Fnone",[230,33,31,216,66,40],"6920205",[143,232,31,224,144,40],2,[234,232,40,224,11,33],"6915219",[236,232,31,224,144,40],"6915688",[107,31,31,238,108,40],"project\u002Fneutral\u002Fidea",[240,31,40,241,11,33],"6914472","project\u002Fneutral\u002Fexecution",[243,31,31,241,244,40],"6914633","hpaavola",[246,31,40,238,11,33],"6914691",[130,248,33,214,131,40],4,[250,248,40,251,112,40],"6914331","other\u002Fneutral\u002Fnone",[78,248,40,253,11,33],"maker\u002Fneutral\u002Fpricing",[255,248,40,251,256,40],"6914584","moconnor",[258,248,40,216,11,33],"6914648",[260,248,31,253,225,40],"6915034",[262,248,40,216,11,33],"6916985",[264,248,31,216,225,40],"6920479",[266,248,40,216,11,33],"6920569",[268,248,38,269,225,40],"6929193","maker\u002Fpositive\u002Fnone",[271,248,40,224,11,33],"6933248",[273,248,33,214,274,40],"6914721","rmrfrmrf",[276,248,40,216,11,33],"6914807",[278,248,31,216,274,40],"6915104",[280,248,40,281,282,40],"6917098","other\u002Fneutral\u002Fpricing","nfoz",[284,248,33,214,274,40],"6914657",[183,248,40,238,11,33],[189,248,33,287,190,40],"project\u002Fcritical\u002Fidea",[289,248,40,290,11,33],"6915253","commenter\u002Fneutral\u002Fidea",[292,248,40,228,190,40],"6920416",[294,248,40,228,11,33],"6920551",[296,248,40,251,66,40],"6914703",[166,38,31,238,167,40],[86,38,40,238,11,33],[300,38,31,301,167,40],"6914931","project\u002Fneutral\u002Fnone",[58,38,40,301,11,33],[72,34,40,216,11,33],[305,34,38,306,307,40],"6923655","project\u002Fpositive\u002Fpricing","resu",[154,309,31,241,155,40],7,[96,309,40,241,11,33],[111,312,31,238,112,40],8,[314,312,40,315,11,33],"6914473","project\u002Fneutral\u002Fdocs",[170,317,31,238,171,40],9,[52,317,40,319,11,33],"project\u002Fneutral\u002Fperformance",[321,317,31,322,171,40],"6915004","project\u002Fmixed\u002Fidea",[324,317,40,241,11,33],"6917346",[174,209,31,238,175,40],[327,328,40,251,329,40],"6914551",11,"fygwtclub",[89,328,40,301,11,33],[134,332,31,253,135,40],12,[334,332,40,216,11,33],"6915191",[336,332,38,269,135,40],"6915248",[338,332,40,281,339,40],"6915211","j_s",[341,332,31,216,135,40],"6915272",[343,332,40,228,344,40],"6915553","sogen",[346,332,40,228,339,40],"6915756",[348,332,40,228,344,40],"6915915",[350,332,40,228,339,40],"6915833",[352,332,40,228,135,40],"6916793",[],[355,359,364,368,373,377],{"id":356,"name":357,"points":358,"category":20},"6923141","Myth",357,{"id":360,"name":361,"points":362,"category":363},"6893602","Bitcoin Pulse",79,"finance_crypto",{"id":365,"name":366,"points":15,"category":367},"6907242","nvlope.com","productivity",{"id":369,"name":370,"points":371,"category":372},"6893866","Convos",47,"infrastructure",{"id":374,"name":375,"points":376,"category":20},"6914749","jQuery Audit",44,{"id":378,"name":379,"points":380,"category":381},"6909090","Knwl.js",43,"languages",false,"v2",{"id":385,"name":5,"line":6,"ai":382,"cat":20,"year":13,"points":14,"comments":15,"rec":28,"s":386,"top":18,"kw":387,"maker":11,"domain":10,"tier":19,"attempts":40,"strip":388,"url":9,"mix":389,"praise":104,"objection":116,"sub":21},6914092,-0.14,[24,25,26,27],"1301333303100335013110030305303330353000",[31,32,33,34],1793990900897]