Nice to have: Load asset data from page navigation

[whsiao]

Since we cannot get the load asset from console.time() console.timeEnd() due to page navigation, is there another trace category or chrome driver configuration to get the load assets data with page navigation and have node big rig display that information?

The data will be useful to have to benchmark web page performance.

[paullewis]

I'm not clear on exactly what you're aiming for. If you want individual resource timings the Resource Timing API is what you need. I don't believe that data is captured in trace files, but if it is then I'll gladly extend Big Rig to account for it. Leave it with me and I'll check.

[sroussey]

What about the simple question: "how long did the page take to load"? From the RAIL perspective, BigRig does nicely for the R, but not much support for the L.

On a related note, during a trace that runs through a test suite, the tracefile has several navigations, but it looks like BigRig only cares about the the last page load.

[paullewis]

It's a challenge this one, really, inasmuch as the trace is the 'atomic' unit on which this is all built, and there's no direct way to console.time at the point of navigation. With that said, however, if you don't specify any time ranges the entire trace will be considered 'in scope', and typically Big Rig will then assume that's a RAIL Load.

The solution in the case you mention, then, is to have individual trace files per navigation. So, for example, in the case of the Big Rig Runner, it configures ChromeDriver to capture all the performance logs, and then purges them whenever you call getTrace() (and it gives you a trace file back that you can store).

I don't know the exact setup, but my suggestion would be, if you're talking automated suites (and by that I would assume ChromeDriver), that you set it up to collect a set of trace files that can be handed to Big Rig individually.

[paullewis]

Just wanted to check in on this. Have you had chance to try tracking pages individually as separate traces?

[sroussey]

I was wondering if were possible to create a trace file for an entire user session (really, a test session) as a single file and then extract the things we care about:

• Every page load
• Every console.time/timeEnd

[whsiao]

@paullewis Haven't done it yet. So far I was able to purge the trace data with the getTrace() and get the load data for page navigation with a second getTrace() call.