Add session$click() to testServer()

[daattali]

Currently, it's very awkward to test action buttons using testServer(), because there is no dedicated function to clicking on them. They are treated as regular inputs, so if I want to simulate a click, I need to manually set its input value to the right integer with session$setInputs().

It would be very useful to have a session$click() that would work for buttons

[daattali]

I just noticed the related issue #2745

[Shelmith-Kariuki]

Hi @daattali ,

Thank you for opening this issue.

If I have shiny::actionButton(ns("go_button"), "Go") in my UI and shiny::observeEvent(input$go_button, {"some code goes here"}), how do I simulate a button click while running tests? session$setInputs(go_button = 1) doesn't work for me.

[Shelmith-Kariuki]

I am building an app with many observeEvents and I need a way to simulate button clicks while running tests. adding session$click() to testServer() would really come in handy.

[gadenbuie]

Thanks @Shelmith-Kariuki for writing in this issue and to @daattali for opening it. I wrote an answer in the related issue here with an example of how I'd approach this problem. Shel – please let me know if you're still having issues testing your module with that approach.

I'm going to close this issue since #2745 provides a complete description of the problem. I will say that I think that it's unlikely that we'd add a specific $click() helper function. testServer() and Shiny modules are advanced enough that it's reasonable to expect users to have to understand how action buttons operate. If I'm missing a detail that makes it trickier to work with, please let me know.