1355147 - Support headless mode on MacOS

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Headless, enhancement)

Comment 1

[Brendan Dahl [:bdahl]]

Attachment: Bug 1355147 - Add basic support for headless mode on macOS.

Review commit: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156618/diff/#index_header
See other reviews: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156618/

Comment 2

[Brendan Dahl [:bdahl]]

Attachment: Bug 1355147 - Expose IsHeadless on GfxInfo.

Allows marionette to check if the browser is in headless mode.

Review commit: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156620/diff/#index_header
See other reviews: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156620/

Comment 3

[Brendan Dahl [:bdahl]]

Attachment: Bug 1355147 - Fix test moving to negative coordinates in headless mac.

Expose if the browser is headless to marionette session capabilities
so the tests can check headless behavior.

Review commit: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156622/diff/#index_header
See other reviews: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156622/

Comment 4

[Brendan Dahl [:bdahl]]

Attachment: Bug 1355147 - Change Firefox to a background application when headless.

To avoid headless Firefox creating an icon in the dock and taking focus away
from the terminal, it is now changed to a background app on startup.

Review commit: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156624/diff/#index_header
See other reviews: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156624/

Comment 5

[Brendan Dahl [:bdahl]]

Attachment: Bug 1355147 - Enable macOS headless marionette tests.

Review commit: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156626/diff/#index_header
See other reviews: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156626/

Comment 6

[Brendan Dahl [:bdahl]]

Attachment: Bug 1355147 - Use headless clipboard on macOS.

Review commit: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156628/diff/#index_header
See other reviews: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156628/

Comment 7

[Brendan Dahl [:bdahl]]

Try push for the above: https://treeherder.mozilla.org/#/jobs?repo=try&revision=630c2131d5693d9d57585e6ea59a193a9a3b0c0a

Comment 8

[Brendan Dahl [:bdahl]]

As for patch "Bug 1355147 - Change Firefox to a background application when headless." There's one downside to going from foreground to background in that the terminal very quickly looses and regains focus while the Firefox is being launched headlessly. I alternatively tried making Firefox a background application by default and changing it to the foreground for non-headless. However, this causes Firefox to not be focused by default. I could also force focus while making it foreground, but I was starting to think making Firefox a background app by default sounds a bit scary. Myk and I talked about potentially making another exe/bundle so that could be used to launch in the background by default, but I was curious to see if you had any other thoughts on this?

Comment 9

[Markus Stange [:mstange]]

Another bundle sounds like the right choice to me. Then you won't have to modify anything at runtime and won't affect regular Firefox.

Comment 10

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

(In reply to Markus Stange [:mstange] from comment #9)
> Another bundle sounds like the right choice to me. Then you won't have to
> modify anything at runtime and won't affect regular Firefox.

Besides increasing Firefox's download size and Firefox bundle complexity (as the headless bundle would be contained within the Firefox bundle), this would make developers have to invoke a different executable to run Firefox headlessly on Mac.

It's critical not to affect regular Firefox, but I'm leery of complicating the developer ergonomics of headless mode.  We don't ship a separate executable for headless on Windows and Linux, nor does Chrome do so for headless on Mac (instead, it stays in the foreground).

So I'm inclined to prefer the temporary focus change, since it means I can tell developers to invoke the Firefox executable with the --headless flag to enter headless mode on all three platforms.

Comment 11

[Markus Stange [:mstange]]

I see.

Have you tried if additionally calling [NSApp setActivationPolicy:NSApplicationActivationPolicyProhibited] avoids the focus change?

Comment 12

[Jeff Muizelaar [:jrmuizel]]

Comment on attachment 8885844 [details]
Bug 1355147 - Add basic support for headless mode on macOS.

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156618/#review162208

Comment 13

[Jeff Muizelaar [:jrmuizel]]

Comment on attachment 8885845 [details]
Bug 1355147 - Expose IsHeadless on GfxInfo.

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156620/#review162210

Comment 14

[Jeff Muizelaar [:jrmuizel]]

Comment on attachment 8885849 [details]
Bug 1355147 - Use headless clipboard on macOS.

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156628/#review162212

Comment 15

[Brendan Dahl [:bdahl]]

Comment on attachment 8885847 [details]
Bug 1355147 - Change Firefox to a background application when headless.

Review request updated; see interdiff: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156624/diff/1-2/

Comment 16

[Brendan Dahl [:bdahl]]

Comment on attachment 8885848 [details]
Bug 1355147 - Enable macOS headless marionette tests.

Review request updated; see interdiff: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156626/diff/1-2/

Comment 17

[Brendan Dahl [:bdahl]]

Comment on attachment 8885849 [details]
Bug 1355147 - Use headless clipboard on macOS.

Review request updated; see interdiff: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156628/diff/1-2/

Comment 18

[Brendan Dahl [:bdahl]]

Latest try run https://treeherder.mozilla.org/#/jobs?repo=try&revision=58485902547edad8fd205b45f15120f2544ec1cc

Comment 19

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2] (away 10/03 - 10/13)]

Comment on attachment 8885848 [details]
Bug 1355147 - Enable macOS headless marionette tests.

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156626/#review164048

::: taskcluster/ci/test/test-platforms.yml:198
(Diff revision 2)
>  
>  macosx64/debug:
>      build-platform: macosx64/debug
>      test-sets:
>          - macosx64-tests
> +        - headless

We are supporting it now for all platforms, right? Can't we move those tests to `common-tests` now? Or don't we want to run it for nightly builds?

Comment 20

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2] (away 10/03 - 10/13)]

Comment on attachment 8885846 [details]
Bug 1355147 - Fix test moving to negative coordinates in headless mac.

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156622/#review164054

Comment 21

[Markus Stange [:mstange]]

Comment on attachment 8885847 [details]
Bug 1355147 - Change Firefox to a background application when headless.

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156624/#review166898

::: toolkit/xre/nsAppRunner.cpp:3178
(Diff revision 2)
>      Output(true, "Error: headless mode is not currently supported on this platform.\n");
>      return 1;
>  #endif
> +
> +#ifdef XP_MACOSX
> +  // To avoid taking focus when running in headless mode immediately

This needs to be indented two more spaces.

Comment 22

[Brendan Dahl [:bdahl]]

Comment on attachment 8885844 [details]
Bug 1355147 - Add basic support for headless mode on macOS.

Review request updated; see interdiff: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156618/diff/1-2/

Comment 23

[Brendan Dahl [:bdahl]]

Comment on attachment 8885845 [details]
Bug 1355147 - Expose IsHeadless on GfxInfo.

Review request updated; see interdiff: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156620/diff/1-2/

Comment 24

[Brendan Dahl [:bdahl]]

Comment on attachment 8885846 [details]
Bug 1355147 - Fix test moving to negative coordinates in headless mac.

Review request updated; see interdiff: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156622/diff/1-2/

Comment 25

[Brendan Dahl [:bdahl]]

Comment on attachment 8885847 [details]
Bug 1355147 - Change Firefox to a background application when headless.

Review request updated; see interdiff: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156624/diff/2-3/

Comment 26

[Brendan Dahl [:bdahl]]

Comment on attachment 8885848 [details]
Bug 1355147 - Enable macOS headless marionette tests.

Review request updated; see interdiff: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156626/diff/2-3/

Comment 27

[Brendan Dahl [:bdahl]]

Comment on attachment 8885849 [details]
Bug 1355147 - Use headless clipboard on macOS.

Review request updated; see interdiff: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156628/diff/2-3/

Comment 28

[Brendan Dahl [:bdahl]]

Comment on attachment 8885846 [details]
Bug 1355147 - Fix test moving to negative coordinates in headless mac.

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156622/#review167606

Carrying r+ forward.

Comment 29

[Brendan Dahl [:bdahl]]

Comment on attachment 8885849 [details]
Bug 1355147 - Use headless clipboard on macOS.

There were some mac clipboard test failures with the previous way of using a singleton for the clipboard. I've updated the clipboard creation to make it a class that can be an instance. I'll also change the other platforms to do this in another bug.

Comment 30

[Brendan Dahl [:bdahl]]

Comment on attachment 8885848 [details]
Bug 1355147 - Enable macOS headless marionette tests.

Carrying r+ forward from whimboo.

Comment 31

[Jeff Muizelaar [:jrmuizel]]

Comment on attachment 8885849 [details]
Bug 1355147 - Use headless clipboard on macOS.

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/156628/#review167904

Comment 32

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/1a4b6ccab14b
Add basic support for headless mode on macOS. r=jrmuizel
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/803e1b08f00f
Expose IsHeadless on GfxInfo. r=jrmuizel
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/19854c39011d
Fix test moving to negative coordinates in headless mac. r=whimboo
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/a9e070c60d4b
Change Firefox to a background application when headless. r=mstange
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/c18686139dbd
Enable macOS headless marionette tests. r=whimboo
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/156623409e44
Use headless clipboard on macOS. r=jrmuizel

Comment 33

[Wes Kocher (:KWierso) (Not reading bugmail; email directly if needed)]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/1a4b6ccab14b
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/803e1b08f00f
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/19854c39011d
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/a9e070c60d4b
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/c18686139dbd
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/156623409e44