This patch removes the `PLAYWRIGHT_GLOBAL_INSTALL=1` variable
and instead introduces a new var - `PLAYWRIGHT_BROWSERS_PATH`.
You can specify `PLAYWRIGHT_BROWSERS_PATH` to affect where playwright
installs browsers and where it looks for browsers.
Fixes#1102
You can install playwright with
```
PLAYWRIGHT_GLOBAL_INSTALL=1 npm i playwright
```
to make it use a single shared location for all browser
downloads.
Fixes#1102
This patch:
- removes `browserType.downloadBrowserIfNeeded()` method. The method
turned out to be ill-behaving and cannot not be used as we'd like to (see #1085)
- adds a `browserType.setExecutablePath` method to set a browser
exectuable.
With this patch, we take the following approach towards managing browser downloads:
- `playwright-core` doesn't download any browsers. In `playwright-core`, `playwright.chromium.executablePath()` returns `null` (same for firefox and webkit).
- clients of `playwright-core` (e.g. `playwright` and others) download browsers one way or another.
They can then configure `playwright` with executable paths and re-export the `playwright` object to their clients.
- `playwright`, `playwright-firefox`, `playwright-chromium` and `playwright-webkit` download
browsers. Once browsers are downloaded, their executable paths are saved to a `.downloaded-browsers.json` file. This file is read in `playwright/index.js` to configure browser executable paths and re-export the API.
- special case is `install-from-github.js` that also cleans up old browsers.
Playwright API is parametrized with a `downloadPath` - a path that
is used to download browsers and to look for downloaded browsers.
This patch starts respecting `downloadPath` as part of
`download-browser.js` utility.
## playwright-chromium
- installs chromium
- exposes chromium api from playwright-core
## playwright-firefox
- installs firefox
- exposes firefox api from playwright-core
## playwright-webkit
- installs webkit
- exposes webkit api from playwright-core
## playwright-core
- downloads no browsers
- contains all of the js code
- designed for internal use
## playwright
- downloads all browsers
- exposes the entire api from playwright-core
## github
- downloads all browsers, generates protocol definitions, builds typescript
- exposes "playwright-core" api
