Ability to disable support for using TypeScript in Version 1.6

[franklychilled]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Our test suites are written in Typescript since 2018 and we are not able to upgrade from version 1.5.1 to 1.6.3. We are using type definition and base classes.

Describe the solution you'd like
Addition attribute available in nightwatch.json

Describe how the solution will work
Stop loading any *.ts files anywhere.

Describe alternatives you've considered
Ignore .ts files if a .js file exists anywhere (Custom Assertions, tests, etc...)

Additional context
We have are maintaining 2 larges test suites and we would appreciate a solution which doesn't requires a complete rewrite of our test suite.

Linked to:
1.6.0 - Added #2559 – support for using TypeScript (.ts) for test files
1.6.3 - Fixed #2627 - an issue with custom commands written in Typescript

Interim solution is to tweak the latest source code with

# fix to stop loading ts files in nightwatch
filename="node_modules/nightwatch/lib/utils/index.js"
search="return '.ts';"
replace="return '._ts';"
sed -i "s/$search/$replace/" $filename

[franklychilled]

Note: when I replace '.ts' but '.js', our custom command would not load (due to the code from #2627) so I've switch to '._ts' as we don't have any extension like this.

[Dharin-shah]

hey @franklychilled, i have tried having a ts and js file with same name in my custom commands and this function
doesnt allow the ts file to load, am i missing something from the issue you have described

[franklychilled]

Hi @Dharin-shah,
Yes, you are prevented due to the fix in 1.6.3 - #2627 - an issue with custom commands written in Typescript

I've change this line to return '._ts'; to stop any Typescript file to load.

Our issue is not only about custom commands, we have custom assertions and test in Typescript. We are also using @types/nightwatch@0.9.12 to provide type definition on our test.

Here an example our our Login page test in Typescript

import { NightwatchBrowser } from 'nightwatch';
import { LoginPage } from '../../pages/login/loginPage';
import { CaseType } from '../../pages/caseLoading';

module.exports = {
  'login/login - username, password and memorable word logs in': (browser: NightwatchBrowser) => {
    const login = new LoginPage(browser);

    login.loadCase(CaseType.MyClient)
    login.launch()
         .navigate();

    browser.assert.attributeEquals(login.selectors.btnLogin, 'value', 'Log in', 'Log in button contains the correct text');
         
    login.input().submit();

    summary.waitForLoad();
  },
};

Due to our import statement on top our typescript files, we have errors like

Error: There was an error while trying to load the file xxx.ts: Cannot use import statement outside a module
--
  | at Array.forEach (<anonymous>)
  | at Array.forEach (<anonymous>)

[Dharin-shah]

@franklychilled Interesting, so if i get this correctly, you dont want any .ts files (commands, assertions, tests..) to be loaded in nightwatch since you already generate the js files yourself. Please correct me if I am wrong :)

[franklychilled]

@Dharin-shah, You are correct, we are compiling all our .ts files using tsc and have already generate the js files. I believe it's a simpler options that supporting the import statement from Typescript.