How to check if element exists without erroring in NW 2

[RezhaBlue]

This is an age old question but I am hoping with NightwatchJS 2.0 there are better ways to address this.

I need to know if an element exists in order to test a specific logic.
If the element does not exist I just want to skip that logic and move on.
It is not an error if it does not exist and I do not want to fail or assert it as such because there is no bug.

E.g. I have a set of HTML button elements on a page.
I want to check if a specific button exists.
It is saved as '@bluebutton' with a complex and verbose xpath selector in my Page Objects.
If it does I want to be able to click it and do some further work. If the button does not exist I just want to note in the report that it does not exist so its logic is being skipped and continue the rest of the test case.

How do I do this in NW 2?

I have tried using findElements but it throws an error when the button is not there. when the button is there it works but requires parsing JSON AND iterating an array, not either or nor neither.

this.findElements('@blueButton', (buttons) => {
    if (buttons.length > 0) {
        // perform steps
    } else { 
        // exit callback 
    }
});

I have also tried:

• asserting visibility and capturing the error but this doesnt work at all due to the asynchronicity
• using verify instead of assert throws an error and still writes test failure into the report when nothing is wrong
• using waitForElementPresent or Visible behaves likewise
• none of these have callbacks that do not throw an error or return false instead of undefined
• adding abortOnFailure false does not prevent erroring

[kmahata]

I havent upgrade to V2 but i do see isPresent() method. Check on it.

Else for V1 i was using a custom command :

module.exports.command = function (selector, callback) {
const hasSlashes = selector.indexOf('//') > -1;
if(hasSlashes){
return this.elements('xpath', selector, results => {
if (results.status !== 0) {
//lets add something in future
}

  callback(results.value.length > 0);
});

}
else {
return this.elements('css selector', selector, results => {
if (results.status !== 0) {
//lets add something in future
}

  callback(results.value.length > 0);
});

}
};

[RezhaBlue]

Thank you for your suggestion!
I have looked into the isPresent method and it is helpful for single elements but needs to be marked to suppress errors. I am using that now for singular elements.
I still have issue for multiple elements or getting 1 element out of multiple.

The code examples you provided while can be made to function are verbose, I was wondering if there's a shorter easier to read and maintain way to do this yet.
So far I have the following which is as verbose and similar to your code:

this.findElements({ selector: '@manyButtons', suppressNotFoundErrors: true }, (buttons) => {
    if (!buttons.value) {
        // is null when element not found
        // and throws an error (unwanted, this is why we use suppress above)
        console.log('No buttons found.');
        process.exit();
    }
    // happy path code here
    this.click({ selector: '@manyButtons', index: 0 });
});