# Installation

CasperJS can be installed on Mac OSX, Windows and most Linuxes.

## Prerequisites

- PhantomJS 1.9.1 or greater. Please read the installation instructions for PhantomJS
- Python 2.6 or greater for `casperjs` in the `bin/` directory

Note

CoffeeScript is not natively supported in PhantomJS versions 2.0.0 and above. If you are going to use CoffeeScript you’ll have to transpile it into vanilla Javascript. See known issues for more details.

New in version 1.1.

- Experimental: as of 1.1.0-beta1, SlimerJS 0.8 or greater to run your tests against Gecko (Firefox) instead of Webkit (just add –engine=slimerjs to your command line options). The SlimerJS developers documented the PhantomJS API compatibility of SlimerJS as well as the differences between PhantomJS and SlimerJS. Note that it is known that coffescript support breaks as of SlimerJS 0.9.6; we are investigating that issue.

New in version 1.1.0-beta4.

Warning

Versions before 1.1.0-beta4 that were installed through npm required an unspecific PhantomJS version by means of an npm dependency. This led to lots of confusion and issues against CasperJS not working properly if installed through npm. Starting with 1.1.0 the installation of an engine (PhantomJS, SlimerJS) will be a real prerequisite, regardless of the installation method you choose for CasperJS.

## Installing from Homebrew (OSX)

Installation of both PhantomJS and CasperJS can be achieved using Homebrew, a popular package manager for Mac OS X.

Above all, don’t forget to update Formulaes:

    $ brew update

For the 1.1 development version (recommended):

    $ brew install casperjs --devel

For the 1.0.x stable version:

    $ brew install casperjs

If you have already installed casperjs and want to have the last release (stable|devel), use `upgrade`:

    $ brew upgrade casperjs

Upgrade only update to the latest release branch (1.0.x|1.1.0-dev).

## Installing from npm

New in version 1.1.0-beta3.

You can install CasperJS using npm:

- For most users (current version 1.1.0-beta4):

  > $ npm install -g casperjs

- If you want a specific older version:

  > - For beta3: $ npm install -g casperjs@1.1.0-beta3
  > - For beta2: $ npm install -g casperjs@1.1.0-beta2

- If you want to install the current master from git using npm:

  > $ npm install -g git+https://github.com/casperjs/casperjs.git

Note

The `-g` flag makes the `casperjs` executable available system-wide.

Warning

While CasperJS is installable via npm, it is not a NodeJS module and will not work with NodeJS out of the box. You cannot load casper by using require(‘casperjs’) in node. Note that CasperJS is not capable of using a vast majority of NodeJS modules out there. Experiment and use your best judgement.

## Installing from git

Installation can be achieved using git. The code is mainly hosted on Github.

### From the master branch

    $ git clone git://github.com/casperjs/casperjs.git
    $ cd casperjs
    $ ln -sf `pwd`/bin/casperjs /usr/local/bin/casperjs

Once PhantomJS and CasperJS installed on your machine, you should obtain something like this:

    $ phantomjs --version
    1.9.2
    $ casperjs
    CasperJS version 1.1.0-beta4 at /Users/niko/Sites/casperjs, using phantomjs version 1.9.2
    # ...

Or if SlimerJS is your thing:

    $ slimerjs --version
    Innophi SlimerJS 0.8pre, Copyright 2012-2013 Laurent Jouanneau & Innophi
    $ casperjs
    CasperJS version 1.1.0 at /Users/niko/Sites/casperjs, using slimerjs version 0.8.0

You are now ready to write your first script!

## Installing from an archive

You can download tagged archives of CasperJS code:

Latest development version (master branch):

- https://github.com/casperjs/casperjs/zipball/master (zip)
- https://github.com/casperjs/casperjs/tarball/master (tar.gz)

Latest stable version:

- https://github.com/casperjs/casperjs/zipball/1.1.0 (zip)
- https://github.com/casperjs/casperjs/tarball/1.1.0 (tar.gz)

Operations are then the same as with a git checkout.

## CasperJS on Windows

### Phantomjs installation additions

- Append `";C:\phantomjs"` to your `PATH` environment variable.
- Modify this path appropriately if you installed PhantomJS to a different location.

### Casperjs installation additions

New in version 1.1.0-beta3.

- Append `";C:\casperjs\bin"` to your `PATH` environment variable (for versions before 1.1.0-beta3 append `";C:\casperjs\batchbin"` to your `PATH` environment variable).
- Modify this path appropriately if you installed CasperJS to a different location.
- If your computer uses both discrete and integrated graphics you need to disable autoselect and explicitly choose graphics processor - otherwise `exit()` will not exit casper.

You can now run any regular casper scripts that way:

    C:> casperjs myscript.js

### Colorized output

Note

New in version 1.1.0-beta1.

Windows users will get colorized output if ansicon is installed or if the user is using ConEmu with ANSI colors enabled.

### Compilation (Optionaly)

- .NET Framework 3.5 or greater (or Mono 2.10.8 or greater) for `casperjs.exe` in the `bin/` directory

## Known Bugs & Limitations

- Due to its asynchronous nature, CasperJS doesn’t work well with PhantomJS’ REPL.