Showreel Studio Help
Help · Connecting your app

Connect your app

Give Showreel Studio your app's address and it writes and tests a profile, so films know how to open and work your app.

Video Connect your app0:58

Before Showreel Studio can film your app, it needs an app profile: a short file that says where the app is, how to tell it has finished loading, and how its navigation works. You don't write it yourself. You give an address, Showreel Studio looks at the app and proposes one, then tests it.

Before you start

  • Showreel Studio installed and signed in: Install Showreel Studio and Sign in and attach the licence.
  • A project folder open in the app (showreel ui), or a terminal in that folder.
  • An address for your app. It can be on your Mac (such as http://localhost:3000), on the internet (such as https://staging.example.com), or a file.

In the app

  1. Open Apps in the rail on the left.
  2. Under Connect an app, type the address and click Look at it. Showreel Studio opens the app in a browser and watches it load; the log shows what it is doing.
  3. Read What it found. Each guess is listed with what it saw, with a picture of each screen it reached. Under Test you see whether the app booted and each screen was reached (a tick or a cross).
  4. Check The profile on the right and correct anything wrong. It proposes:
    • Ready when: an element the app draws itself, so a film never starts on a half-loaded page.
    • Navigation: the pattern for its menu items, where {name} stands for the item.
    • Busy while this is on the page: a spinner or loading marker to wait for.
    • Settle after ready, ms: how long the page keeps moving after it is ready.
    • Sign-in: whether it opens signed out, or needs you to sign in once.
    • Filmed as: desktop, or an iPhone, Android phone or iPad.
    • Mask: emails, phone numbers, card numbers or IBANs it saw on screen.
    • Traps: notes in plain words about anything awkward, for whoever writes the code that operates the app.
  5. Click Test again after a change. It boots the app with your version and visits the same screens.
  6. Click Save and use it. The profile is saved and becomes the project's app.

If the app needs signing in, a Sign in… button appears. See Film an app that needs signing in.

In the terminal

Look at the app and print the proposal, tested, without saving it:

showreel connect https://staging.example.com

Save it once you are happy. --name sets the profile's name:

showreel connect https://staging.example.com --save --name acme

This writes apps/acme.json. If the project has no app yet, it becomes the project's app. An existing profile of the same name is not replaced unless you add --force.

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