Application developers now employ a variety of tools to run test cases as a result of technological advancements. For this, a variety of automated tools are available. Selenium is one of the tools that immediately springs to mind when we think of web automation. The main objective of Selenium testing is to accelerate test process.
Selenium assists in checking and analyzing the test flow to determine where and why a large test suite has failed. It does this by taking a screenshot of the test as it is being run so that testers can view the application’s state at the time it fails. This helps them avoid having to repeat a whole test each time a script fails, saving them time.
One of the most well-liked open-source test automation tools for testing applications is Selenium. It provides a wide range of testing functionality to produce high-quality applications. Web interaction testing and application regression testing both benefit from selenium testing. It is a de facto standard made up of a number of libraries, servers, and tools that enable developers to automate web browsers, facilitating the testing of web applications. One outstanding web automation tool from this suit is Selenium WebDriver.
We will discuss the top 10 time-saving Selenium WebDriver tips and tricks in this article. Before getting to the topic, let’s take a closer look at the selenium WebDriver and its components.
Selenium Webdriver
Selenium Webdriver is currently becoming increasingly popular in the automation industry. It is among the most popular and often used testing frameworks for web automation. A wide range of functionality is included in this open-source library. Due to the availability of the Selenium WebDriver libraries for numerous programming languages, Selenium is used by many users. Different programming languages, including Python, Ruby, PHP, and Perl, are supported by WebDriver. Additionally, it has the ability to manage Selenium automation testing using frameworks like TestNG and JUnit.
The first cross-platform testing framework with operating system-level browser configuration and control capabilities was Selenium Webdriver. It served as an interface for generating and running test cases. Any browser that supports JavaScript can use Webdriver because Selenium was created using JavaScript. When testing a website, Selenium Webdriver simulates the behavior of a real user. Together, these features make it the ideal tool for automation.
The architecture of Selenium WebDriver
The architecture of Selenium WebDriver is easy and simple to use. It consists of:-
- Selenium test script-it is the test code written in any of the abovementioned programming languages that is translated by the driver, and is executed using browser-specific drivers.
- JSON Wire Protocol- This protocol offers a means of transporting data between a server and a client. For many types of web services, JSON Wire Protocol serves as the industry standard.
- Browser drivers –Selenium employs drivers, which are executable modules that start a browser instance and run the test script to create a secure connection with the browser and are unique to each browser.
- Web browsers –Selenium WebDriver supports several different web browsers for testing and running applications.
10 Time-saving Selenium WebDriver tips and tricks
Working with Selenium Webdriver frequently causes testers to run into some common issues. However, testers can improve the stability and execution speed of the automated test with the right guidance and a few simple suggestions. The information provided below will help testers organize and expedite tests, more easily monitor test execution, provide detailed results, and save time.
1. Include wait commands
Individual web pages sometimes take a while for web browsers to load, so it is important to wait until the page is fully loaded. This could be due to server problems, network issues, or system configurations. To handle this, QAs must first ensure that it is loaded correctly before performing any further operations. They frequently employ the Thread.sleep() method for this, which pauses the automation script for a predetermined period of time.
This approach isn’t the most effective, though. A web page may occasionally take longer to load than expected, or it may occasionally load more quickly than expected, thus slowing down the execution of the test. Therefore, using Implicit or Explicit Wait Commands in Selenium is a better, more effective solution.
2. Capture a screenshot when a test fails
It is fairly common to take screenshots if a failure or divergence from the expected outcome is encountered during testing. So attaching a screenshot is thought to be a must when creating a bug.
Selenium scripts are certain to crash at some point in time, thus it’s critical to identify the cause of the crash, whether it’s a problem with the AUT or a coding issue. Therefore, taking screenshots as test cases are executed is essential for both the development and testing teams to determine why a test case failed and what went wrong. This will save the testers time and effort by making it much simpler to look into and pinpoint the reason for test failure. When troubleshooting errors, they look at the screenshots to determine whether the problem is a scripting problem or an application defect.
3. Refresh the webpage using Webdriver
Sometimes a webpage’s elements fail to load, and the page needs to be refreshed for all of the elements to appear. However, it is frequently seen that elements don’t load on the initial try, but if testers reload the page, all components load. The Selenium Webdriver navigation () method can be used to reload the page. All elements will have new initial sets when using the refreshing () method.
4. Employ Explicit Waits only
The Selenium WebDriver can be instructed to wait until a certain condition is met before executing the test script by using Explicit Wait instructions. The browser will wait the same length of time before loading each web element if an Implicit Wait command is set. The test script’s execution is subsequently delayed needlessly as a result.
Setting Explicit Wait is crucial when a website contains components that naturally take longer to load. Therefore, to avoid delays when running Selenium tests, utilize Explicit Wait commands.
5. Use the appropriate locators in WebDriver
QAs must be skilled at using Selenium’s various locators in order to test the appropriate web elements of a given application. They must know how to find web elements in various ways and which locators work best in certain circumstances. Because the entire process will not function and the tests will fail if the test scripts are unable to detect the appropriate elements.
6. Take partial screenshot
Sometimes testers must take a screenshot of just a portion of the screen or of a specific web element instead of the entire screen. To do this, they must take a screenshot of the entire website and then crop it to match the size and position of the web element. This is due to the fact that full-size images would take up a lot of memory space in the image directory or they simply need to capture screenshots of certain elements in order to test case requirements, which is more logical.
7. Implement Page Object Model
The user interface (UI) of a website will unavoidably change as a result of incorporating new updates on a frequent basis due to rising user demands. As a result, the locators for particular UI elements also change. Because of this, the QAs must again create new test cases for the same page, which can be tiresome and time-consuming.
The Page Object Model design pattern can be used to create test scripts as a fix for this. Each web page is treated as a class file in this design pattern, and each class file contains the relevant web elements. This reduces code duplication and makes test maintenance easier. Additionally, QAs can leverage the existing code and make minimum changes because of this technique.
8. Use Selenium Webdriver to go to a new pop-up window
Sometimes when a web page element is clicked, a new popup window appears, and in order to complete an operation, the driver instance must be switched to the new window. Utilizing the Selenium WebDriver makes switching to new Windows simple.
Testers can use the getAllWindowHandles() function before utilizing the method driver.switchTo() to switch to a specific window that has been opened. By using this method, Selenium testing will be quicker, easier, and more organized.
9. Get a web element’s HTML source
By obtaining the HTML source code of a web element, automated Selenium testing is made more effective and result-driven. Get the inner HTML source of a web element using the getAttribute method provided by the Selenium WebDriver. Testers can accomplish this by first obtaining the web element’s source, and then using getAttribute to obtain the inner HTML of the web element.
Finding the HTML source of specified web items makes it easier to evaluate the flaws. It goes without saying that speedy identification of errors leads to quick debugging, enabling the rapid release of websites that offer the best user experiences.
10. Run Selenium tests on real devices
To make the most of the above time-saving strategies, it’s crucial to select a Selenium-based real-device platform that enables running Selenium tests across platforms and real devices.
LambdaTest is an AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform that has all the devices and browsers required for Selenium tests. In addition to Selenium, LambdaTest also supports a wide range of other frameworks, such as Appium and Cucumber.
With the help of this platform, testers may test their web and mobile applications in real user environments in order to find the most defects, get precise test results, and release a robust application. LambdaTest enables testing teams to execute Selenium tests concurrently over a cloud Selenium Grid of more than 3000 real devices, browsers, and operating system combinations online. Additionally, it enables testers to capture screenshots during Selenium tests automatically without having to manually start the procedure using code.
LambdaTest offers teams developer-focused resources like built-in development tools and integrations with well-known programming languages and frameworks. Additionally, it enables integration with well-known CI/CD tools like CircleCI, Jenkins, Travis, etc. To put it in short, LambdaTest simplifies, accelerates, and improves automated Selenium testing.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that the time-saving tips listed above can be applied to running selenium tests while also saving time. Most of the issues with scripting in automation testing can be resolved by using these tips and tricks.