Who isn’t aware of web automation testing? It guarantees the smooth functioning and sustainability of your application. Selenium is one of the most commonly taken names in this field. But as a new tester, you might ask, “What is Selenium?”
It is a test suite that is designed to automate web apps for testing purposes. It also allows the testers to ensure the compatibility of web apps across multiple platforms and browsers.
Not familiar with Selenium’s features and offerings? Don’t worry! We are here for you! Our article will help you understand Selenium’s capabilities, components, and how to get started with it.
Table of Contents
What is Selenium?
We do not want to directly get into the complex details of Selenium. So, let us begin our discussion with the basics of Selenium. In layman’s terms, it is an open-source framework for automatically testing web apps. It allows you to write test scripts in multiple programming languages like Java, Ruby, and JavaScript.
To run the test cases on your chosen web applications, Selenium gives compatibility with multiple popular browsers like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. Let us shed more light on Selenium’s functioning by diverting our attention towards some of its major features:
- It is the perfect option to use cross-browser testing in your test environment.
- Want to write the test scripts in your chosen language? Selenium supports multiple programming languages out of the box.
- Selenium is open-source and free to use. This makes it the perfect choice for individual developers and small startup companies.
- Finally, it is very easy to integrate Selenium with various other tools like JUnit, Jenkins, and TestNG. This further boosts the extensibility of the Selenium testing infrastructure.
Selenium Suite Components
As we already mentioned earlier, Selenium is a test suit consisting of multiple individual tools. All of these tools aim to help you at specific areas of the application testing process. To further improve your understanding of the multiple components of the Selenium test suite, we have mentioned them in detail below:
- Firstly, the Selenium WebDriver is the backbone of the entire Selenium test suite. Now, you might ask, “What is the Selenium WebDriver?” It is the tool that is responsible for not only allocating the test cases to the respective element but also executing them in their native environment of the web browser. The Selenium WebDriver can perform all of these functions without using any dedicated test engine.
- Next, the Selenium IDE or the Selenium Integrated Development Environment helps you implement codeless automation testing on your web apps. To achieve this goal, it simply analyzes the user interactions and generates the test cases in real-time. This is a perfect solution for new developers who want to get started with basic Selenium-based automation testing.
- Finally, the Selenium Grid will help you include parallel testing on your complex web apps. This is the process of running multiple test cases on different elements and configurations at the same time. To implement this approach, it uses the principle of a hub that is connected to several nodes. So, whenever you assign any test script, it analyzes its parameters and allocates it to the respective element for the execution process.
How Selenium Works
Under the hood, Selenium mainly operates by interacting with the browser’s native automation APIs. So, when you execute a test script, Selenium will send a command to the browser using WebDriver. The browser will then receive these commands and perform the desired actions. Some of the most commonly executed actions will include clicking a button or filling out a form.
After performing all of these actions, the browser will return the results back to Selenium so that you can analyze the performance of the target element.
Getting Started with Selenium
To start automating your web application testing with Selenium, you need to go through a few prerequisites and also follow a few simple steps. To simplify this entire process for the new testers, we have mentioned all the intended steps in the required chronological order:
Prerequisites
- Start by learning at least one of the programming languages that is natively supported by Selenium.
- Ready for the next step? Download and install the latest version of the Java Development Kit on your system if you use the Java programming language.
- Planning to use the IDE? Download and install tools like Eclipse or IntelliJ. These tools will also be useful for the Java and the Python programming language.
- Finally, you have to install the dedicated WebDriver for your target browser. For example, if you’re targeting to test your web application on Chrome, you need to download the Selenium ChromeDriver.
Setting Up Selenium
After wrapping up the prerequisites for the Selenium setup process, you can proceed toward the step that will help you to install and configure Selenium on your testing machine:
- Begin by installing the JDK on your native test machine. After this, you have to configure the JAVA_HOME environment variable.
- Now you have to move on to visiting the official Selenium website and downloading the libraries for your preferred programming language. These libraries will also help you to include additional functionality in the application testing process.
- Now, it would download the WebDriver for the target browser and place the WebDriver executable in a location that will be accessible using the system path.
- The final step in the setup process is to configure the IDE by creating a new project and including the Selenium libraries in their project dependencies folder.
Writing Your First Selenium Script
By now, you have successfully configured the Selenium testing environment. You are ready to write your first automation test script using Selenium. To simplify this process, we have mentioned a sample test script using the Java programming language to automate a Google search.
Selenium Best Practices
Now that we have analyzed how you can set up and execute your tests with Selenium, it is very important to go through some of the best practices that will help you to further refine your testing efficiency and also boost the quality of the application that you’re currently working on:
- It is very important to use explicit waits, natively available with Selenium, to avoid flaky tests. This is because explicit waits help properly test the functioning of dynamic elements by pausing the test cases until they are visible and intractable.
- It is very important to break your long and complex test cases into reusable modules to enhance the maintainability and readability of the overall structure.
- We suggest the testers to implement external data sources like Excel and JSON files to test various input scenarios. This not only helps improve the reusability of the test cases but also makes them more accurate based on real-world use cases.
- The testers can consider using Git or other version control tools for managing the test scripts and keeping track of all the test data.
- Finally, it is important to use the Selenium Grid for faster test execution with the help of parallel testing.
Advanced Selenium Features
Apart from the basic testing capabilities, Selenium also offers various advanced features that will help you to further customize the testing environment and implement various features custom-designed for your testing project:
Cloud Integrations
We suggest the testers to integrate Selenium with various cloud-based platforms to implement real device testing through online device farms. To further improve our understanding regarding such integrations, let us use LambdaTest as our reference point:
LambdaTest is an AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform that lets you perform manual and automation testing at scale with over 3000 real devices, browsers, and OS combinations. In case you were not aware of “What is Selenium WebDriver?” you might also not know that you can integrate LambdaTest with WebDriver to run automated cross-browser testing on your web apps.
After running the test scripts, LambdaTest script will natively generate comprehensive test reports with multiple media elements like screenshots and videos. You can use all these collaterals to easily find the faulty elements and implement the required resolution steps.
Handling Alerts and Pop-Ups
Modern web applications include various additional features like alerts and pop-ups. All of these inclusions are aimed at improving the user experience on the web. However it becomes a very troubling process while verifying the functioning of these elements. While working with Selenium, you can use various native APIs to interact with these browser alerts.
For example, the following code snippet will help you interact with alerts and pop-ups while verifying their proper functioning.
Working With Frames
While working with Selenium, various developers prefer using multiple frames to test the functioning of various elements at the same time. In case you want to switch between the elements, you simply have to use the code snippet that you have attached below:
Automating File Uploads
It is a common practice for users to upload their files on various applications depending on their requirements. However, from a developer’s point of view, it is also equally important to verify that these features are working properly. So, you can easily automate file uploads with Selenium by using the following command:
Capturing Screenshots
While performing visual testing on your web applications, you might want to capture screenshots to keep a record of the current status of the app’s visuals. This will help you to compare whether any change has messed up the visuals of the application. If you want to capture screenshots while implementing Selenium-based web automation testing, you simply have to enter the following in the terminal window:
The Bottom Line
Based on all the factors that we put forward in this article, we can easily justify Selenium as the crucial pillar for web automation testing. This is mostly because of its versatility and extensibility in terms of application development and testing.
However, you must remember that Selenium comes with a steep learning curve to acquire the required programming skills and also get accustomed to all the third party tools required for the proper test execution process. It is also important to remember that Selenium is only useful while you are working with web apps.
Despite these challenges, testers should be aware of the basics of Selenium and also its advanced features. So, whether you are a beginner tester or an experienced tester, Selenium will provide a scalable solution to properly automate the repetitive testing tasks in your application testing life cycle.
