JavaScript waitForTime

By  on  

I write a lot of tests for new features within Firefox DevTools. We have hundreds of "mochitests" which open the browser and perform synthetic actions like clicking, typing, and other user actions. I've previously written about waitForever which essentially halts following actions without locking the browser. Another utility I enjoy is waitForTime, an async JavaScript function that I can await to give breathing time between two tasks.

Whenever I want to wait a given amount of time between tasks, I employ this function:

function waitForTime(ms) {
  return new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, ms));
}

/* Usage */
await waitForTime(200);
// ...do other thing...
await waitForTime(200);
// ...do next thing ...

It's important to point out that most waitForTime calls don't appear in the final test, since arbitrary timeouts lead to intermittent test failures, but they are helpful in knowing where I need to add polling for some other condition!

Recent Features

  • By
    Creating Scrolling Parallax Effects with CSS

    Introduction For quite a long time now websites with the so called "parallax" effect have been really popular. In case you have not heard of this effect, it basically includes different layers of images that are moving in different directions or with different speed. This leads to a...

  • By
    CSS Gradients

    With CSS border-radius, I showed you how CSS can bridge the gap between design and development by adding rounded corners to elements.  CSS gradients are another step in that direction.  Now that CSS gradients are supported in Internet Explorer 8+, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Degradable SELECT onChange

    Whenever I go to Google Analytics I notice a slight flicker in the dropdown list area. I see a button appear for the shortest amount of time and the poof! Gone. What that tells me is that Google is making their site function...

  • By
    AJAX Page Loads Using MooTools Fx.Explode

    Note: All credit for Fx.Explode goes to Jan Kassens. One of the awesome pieces of code in MooTools Core Developer Jan Kassens' sandbox is his Fx.Explode functionality. When you click on any of the designated Fx.Explode elements, the elements "explode" off of the...

Discussion

  1. Pavan

    I have this kind of a function in all my apps and I usually name is delay.

  2. Dubbya

    You don’t have to put “async” in front of the function?

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!