Using Splinter to select from a dynamic menu

I am trying to run a splinter script in order to find a menu option in this webpage.

The menu's HTML looks like this:

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" class="logo">
  <tbody><tr>
    <td align="left" style="background : url('gfx/tab_fill.png'); background-repeat : repeat-x;">
      ...
      <a href="variants">
          <img src="gfx/tab_variants_F.png" alt="View variants" id="tab_variants" width="58" height="25" align="left" class="">
      </a>
      ...
    </td>
  </tr>
</tbody></table>

<ul id="menu_tab_variants" class="jeegoocontext" style="display: none; left: 180px; top: 90px;">
  <li class="icon"><a href="/variants" class="">
      <span class="icon" style="background-image: url(gfx/menu_magnifying_glass.png);"></span>View all genomic variants</a></li>
  <li class="icon"><a href="/variants/in_gene" class="">
     <span class="icon" style="background-image: url(gfx/menu_magnifying_glass.png);"></span>View all variants affecting transcripts</a></li>
  <li class="icon"><a href="/submit" class="">
      <span class="icon" style="background-image: url(gfx/plus.png);"></span>Create a new data submission</a></li>
  ... 
</ul>

The script should hover over a menu header, show what is visible, and then hover out of it and show what elements are visible. But nothing appears visible.

from splinter import Browser

browser = Browser('firefox', wait_time=10)    
browser.visit("http://databases.lovd.nl/shared/variants")

tab_variants = browser.find_link_by_href("variants")
print tab_variants

tab_variants.first.mouse_over()
print browser.find_link_by_partial_text(
    "View all genomic variants").first.visible
print browser.find_link_by_partial_text(
    "View all variants affecting transcripts").first.visible

tab_variants.mouse_out()
print browser.find_link_by_partial_text(
    "View all genomic variants").first.visible
print browser.find_link_by_partial_text(
    "View all variants affecting transcripts").first.visible

I get this output:

[<splinter.driver.webdriver.WebDriverElement object at 0x18c29d0>]
False
False
False
False

Am I using the mouse_over method as it is intended in splinter or is there something about this particular menu that splinter can't deal with.

Solution

The menu is not yet visible at the time you are checking the .visible property. You can however wait for it by moving the mouse to the sub menu:

from splinter import Browser

browser = Browser('firefox', wait_time=10)
browser.visit("http://databases.lovd.nl/shared/variants")

# move over the menu "Variant"
browser.find_by_id('tab_variants').mouse_over()
# move over the sub menu
browser.find_by_id('menu_tab_variants').mouse_over()

# print the menu items visibility
print browser.find_link_by_text("View all genomic variants").visible
print browser.find_link_by_text("View all variants affecting transcripts").visible

# move the mouse out of the sub menu
browser.find_by_id('menu_tab_variants').mouse_out()

# print the menu items visibility
print browser.find_link_by_text("View all genomic variants").visible
print browser.find_link_by_text("View all variants affecting transcripts").visible