How to write into Ionic's `ion-input` with Protractor?

Issue

I'm just starting out with Ionic and looking at the documentation I figured I would go down the route of using the built-in stuff over plain HTML.

So I have this HTML:

    <ion-item>
      <ion-input type="tel"
                 autofocus="true"
                 placeholder="Phone number"
                 name="phoneNumber"
                 formControlName="phoneNumber"></ion-input>
    </ion-item>

And in my e2e test I want to write to that field so I tried to do:

$('ion-input[name="phoneNumber"]').sendKeys('12345678');

To which I get the following stack trace:

Failed: unknown error: cannot focus element
  (Session info: chrome=68.0.3440.106)
  (Driver info: chromedriver=2.41.578706 (5f725d1b4f0a4acbf5259df887244095596231db),platform=Mac OS X 10.13.6 x86_64)
WebDriverError: unknown error: cannot focus element
  (Session info: chrome=68.0.3440.106)
  (Driver info: chromedriver=2.41.578706 (5f725d1b4f0a4acbf5259df887244095596231db),platform=Mac OS X 10.13.6 x86_64)
    at Object.checkLegacyResponse (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/selenium-webdriver/lib/error.js:546:15)
    at parseHttpResponse (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/selenium-webdriver/lib/http.js:509:13)
    at doSend.then.response (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/selenium-webdriver/lib/http.js:441:30)
    at process._tickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:68:7)
From: Task: WebElement.sendKeys()
    at Driver.schedule (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/selenium-webdriver/lib/webdriver.js:807:17)
    at WebElement.schedule_ (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/selenium-webdriver/lib/webdriver.js:2010:25)
    at WebElement.sendKeys (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/selenium-webdriver/lib/webdriver.js:2174:19)
    at actionFn (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/protractor/built/element.js:89:44)
    at Array.map (<anonymous>)
    at actionResults.getWebElements.then (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/protractor/built/element.js:461:65)
    at ManagedPromise.invokeCallback_ (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/selenium-webdriver/lib/promise.js:1376:14)
    at TaskQueue.execute_ (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/selenium-webdriver/lib/promise.js:3084:14)
    at TaskQueue.executeNext_ (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/selenium-webdriver/lib/promise.js:3067:27)
    at asyncRun (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/selenium-webdriver/lib/promise.js:2927:27)Error
    at ElementArrayFinder.applyAction_ (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/protractor/built/element.js:459:27)
    at ElementArrayFinder.(anonymous function).args [as sendKeys] (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/protractor/built/element.js:91:29)
    at ElementFinder.(anonymous function).args [as sendKeys] (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/protractor/built/element.js:831:22)
    at UserContext.<anonymous> (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/e2e/src/app.e2e-spec.ts:29:28)
    at /home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/jasminewd2/index.js:112:25
    at new ManagedPromise (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/selenium-webdriver/lib/promise.js:1077:7)
    at ControlFlow.promise (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/selenium-webdriver/lib/promise.js:2505:12)
    at schedulerExecute (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/jasminewd2/index.js:95:18)
    at TaskQueue.execute_ (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/selenium-webdriver/lib/promise.js:3084:14)
    at TaskQueue.executeNext_ (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/selenium-webdriver/lib/promise.js:3067:27)
From: Task: Run it("displays the login/signup screen") in control flow
    at UserContext.<anonymous> (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/jasminewd2/index.js:94:19)
    at attempt (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/jasmine/node_modules/jasmine-core/lib/jasmine-core/jasmine.js:4297:26)
    at QueueRunner.run (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/jasmine/node_modules/jasmine-core/lib/jasmine-core/jasmine.js:4217:20)
    at runNext (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/jasmine/node_modules/jasmine-core/lib/jasmine-core/jasmine.js:4257:20)
    at /home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/jasmine/node_modules/jasmine-core/lib/jasmine-core/jasmine.js:4264:13
    at /home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/jasmine/node_modules/jasmine-core/lib/jasmine-core/jasmine.js:4172:9
    at /home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/jasminewd2/index.js:64:48
    at ControlFlow.emit (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/selenium-webdriver/lib/events.js:62:21)
    at ControlFlow.shutdown_ (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/selenium-webdriver/lib/promise.js:2674:10)
    at shutdownTask_.MicroTask (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/selenium-webdriver/lib/promise.js:2599:53)
From asynchronous test: 
Error
    at Suite.<anonymous> (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/e2e/src/app.e2e-spec.ts:16:3)
    at addSpecsToSuite (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/jasmine/node_modules/jasmine-core/lib/jasmine-core/jasmine.js:1107:25)
    at Env.describe (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/jasmine/node_modules/jasmine-core/lib/jasmine-core/jasmine.js:1074:7)
    at describe (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/jasmine/node_modules/jasmine-core/lib/jasmine-core/jasmine.js:4399:18)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/e2e/src/app.e2e-spec.ts:5:1)
    at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:689:30)
    at Module.m._compile (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/ts-node/src/index.ts:439:23)
    at Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:700:10)
    at Object.require.extensions.(anonymous function) [as .ts] (/home/ba/workspace/ionic-test/node_modules/ts-node/src/index.ts:442:12)

By looking at the HTML I notice that the actual input is inside the shadow DOM so I tried accessing it by using:

element(by.deepCss('input[name="phoneNumber"]')).sendKeys('12345678');

But it gave me: Failed: element not visible and it seems like it's finding the <input type="hidden" …> that ion-input creates. So I changed it to search for input[type="tel"] as that's unique, but no luck as it now instead says there isn't any item.

The shadow DOM is new to me and I don't really know much about it, am I missing something obvious with how I should behave with it? I've attached a screenshot from my Chrome inspector view.

Solution

After posting this I found the protractor-uisref-locator Protractor locator plugin which added support for another Ionic component. So I took that and changed it a bit and created this locator that can find my inner input for me. I have no idea why by.deepCss didn't work and would love to understand that better.

by.addLocator('ionInput', (name, opt_parentElement) => {
  const using = opt_parentElement || document,
        ionInput = using.querySelector('ion-input[name="' + name + '"]');

  if (ionInput) {
    return ionInput.shadowRoot.querySelector('input');
  } else {
    return;
  }
});

And usage:

element(by.ionInput('phoneNumber')).sendKeys('12345678');

Answered By - gaqzi