What is Selenium WebDriver? It is commonly referred to as WebDriver and is a combination of browser control code and language bindings. To provide a seamless user experience, this application is essential for automating browser tests across various operating systems and browsers.
Providing excellent user experiences becomes increasingly important as the internet world develops. Ensuring a smooth end-user experience is crucial for websites and online apps. The most popular technique for testing your product across different operating systems and browsers is automation testing.
With support for Java, C#, Ruby, JavaScript, and other languages, Selenium is a useful tool for big businesses looking to automate their software testing procedures.
What is Selenium?
Web browser interactions are automated via Selenium. It enables developers to test the functionality of web applications by simulating user behaviors, including typing, clicking, and browsing web pages. With support for numerous browsers, platforms, and programming languages, Selenium—which was first created to automate tedious web tasks—has grown to become one of the most widely used tools for automated browser testing.
Read this guide on what is Selenium to know more about the Selenium framework.
What is WebDriver?
Similar to how a Selenium server can be used locally or remotely, a WebDriver runs a browser natively. WebDriver allows you to operate a browser from another computer. It makes it possible to reflect on and manage user agents. This allows out-of-process programs to remotely control web browser behavior over a language-neutral wire protocol that is platform-neutral.
With an emphasis on web browser compatibility, you can explore and work with the DOM using this specification. Although the main goal of this specification is to automate testing, browser scripts can also be used to control the web browser.
Language bindings and implementations of separate browser-controlling code make up the Selenium WebDriver. This is commonly referred to as WebDriver.
The WebDriver’s programming interface is clear and easy to use
WebDriver’s object-oriented API is small and simple to use.
It efficiently operates the browser.
The advantages of Selenium WebDriver are as follows:
Because of its simplicity, automated testing tools may easily interact with web content. Commands that make operations like clicking items and inputting text easier are available.
The WebDriver protocol can be expanded to provide features not found in the ECMAScript standard at this time. It will allow suppliers to reveal browser-specific capabilities and allow browsers to support the automation of new platform features.
Because Selenium works with a variety of computer languages, including Python, C#, Java, JavaScript, and others, testers can automate web pages in any language they want.
How does WebDriver for Selenium operate?
The code may interact with many browser drivers thanks to Selenium WebDriver, which serves as a mediator. Test cases are developed using element locators, which are found using a Selenium element locator technique when Selenium is used to perform tests. Actions can then be carried out on those items using Selenium WebDriver. To put it briefly, Selenium WebDriver operates in three stages:
- The JSON wire protocol transforms test commands into an HTTP request.
- Each browser has a driver that initializes the server before any test cases are run.
- The request is then sent to the browser via its driver.
The difficulties using Selenium WebDriver:
- No assistance with testing desktop or window applications
Only web-based application automation is supported by Selenium WebDriver. It is incompatible with Windows/Desktop application automation.
- Pop-ups based on the OS
Because operating system-based pop-ups are a component of the operating system rather than the browser, they are beyond Selenium WebDriver’s capabilities. However, because Selenium WebDriver can run in several windows, web-based alerts are typically managed via the “switchTo” technique, which keeps the browser running in the background while preventing the pop-up.
- Managing dynamic components
In UI test automation, dynamic element locators can be challenging; for example, the identifiers for a specific element may change each time the website loads. Here, dynamic web elements can be handled by Selenium WebDriver using functions like starts-with, contains, ends with, etc.
- Testing APIs
It is simple to add API testing to a bespoke framework or user interface that is based on Selenium. Nevertheless, that will require a different tool or library, which is another drawback of utilizing Selenium WebDriver (Rest-assured is one such library).
- Absence of Visual Testing
It is necessary to integrate Selenium with Sikuli for picture testing and to use an alternative tool or library to integrate Visual Testing (BackstopJS is one such library).
- Upkeep, expandability, and proficiency
The team’s experience and the necessary resources are needed to manage Selenium. Selenium requires a lot of upkeep and is challenging to scale as a business expands.
When to Use Selenium WebDriver?
The following situations are ideal for using Selenium WebDriver:
- Cross-Browser Testing: Selenium WebDriver’s browser interoperability makes it an excellent choice if your online application needs to be tested across a variety of browsers.
- Regression testing is perfect for automating repeated tests that must be performed to make sure no new bugs are introduced after every program update.
- Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD): Selenium WebDriver is appropriate for teams that use continuous testing since it easily integrates into CI/CD workflows.Dynamic Web Applications: Selenium WebDriver offers precise control over browser behavior and DOM elements, making it an effective tool for applications with dynamic content, such as AJAX updates.
- Functional Testing: Ensures that web applications run properly by automating user behaviors like button clicks and form completion. In order to verify the behavior of the program, this entails verifying the anticipated results.
- Data-driven testing uses test data that is generated automatically or taken from a database to maximize testing efficiency. To cover a variety of situations and conditions, repeat the test using different datasets.
- UI/UX testing automates checks to guarantee that the layout and visual components of your program stay consistent and offer a satisfying user experience.
- To completely provide a seamless and consistent user experience from beginning to end, testing replicates basic user interactions across different application components.
- By combining with tools like Selenium Grid, parallel testing allows tests to run concurrently across several browsers, saving time. This improves efficiency and speeds up the testing process.
- Complex User Flows: Ensures that complex user routes are fully validated by simulating and testing complex user interactions that need to be repeated.
- Handling Complex Scenarios: Uses WebDriver’s flexible features to handle issues like pop-ups, iframes, alarms, and dynamic content. It guarantees thorough testing in a variety of situations.
- Integration of CI Pipelines: This enables testing to be automated with every code update by integrating with your CI/CD pipeline. Throughout development, this integration ensures constant code quality.
Top Techniques for Automating Selenium WebDrivers
Adhering to best practices that improve the code quality, maintainability, and dependability of your test scripts is essential if you want to become proficient with Selenium WebDriver automation. The following are some crucial Selenium WebDriver automation best practices:
1. Make Your Code More Modular
Code maintenance is aided by segmenting your test scripts into smaller, reusable routines. Your test scripts will be easier to read and manage if you use modularization to organize related operations and assertions into methods. For example, you can design distinct methods for form submission, validation, and log in.
2. POM (Page Object Model) is used
By isolating the test logic from the page-specific activities, the Page Object Model (POM) design pattern improves the readability and maintainability of your code. Every web page in your website is represented by a class.
3. Make use of leverage JUnit or TestNG
Testing frameworks such as JUnit or TestNG facilitate the management of test cases, their sequential execution, and the production of thorough reports. These frameworks include annotations for setup, teardown, and test methods.
4. Deal with Exceptions With grace
By putting strong error handling in place, you can make sure your tests can handle unforeseen problems without failing suddenly. Better debugging and test resiliency are made possible by using try-catch blocks to catch and log exceptions.
5. Update your browser’s drivers
Updating your browser drivers on a regular basis helps prevent problems and guarantees compatibility with the most recent versions. Outdated drivers may cause malfunctions and inaccurate test results.
7. Instead of using implicit waits, use explicit ones
Since explicit waits wait for certain requirements to be met before acting, they are more dependable than implicit waits. This lessens test flakiness by guaranteeing that pieces are accessible and prepared for interaction.
8. Use the LambdaTest platform for cloud-based testing
It makes it possible for your automated tests to run smoothly, guaranteeing consistent performance across different hardware, locations, browsers, and operating systems.
With access to more than 3000 actual devices, browsers, and operating system combinations, LambdaTest is an AI-powered platform for test orchestration and execution that enables you to execute automated and manual tests at scale.
Conclusion
Understanding the fundamentals of Selenium WebDriver automation, properly configuring the environment, creating efficient test scripts, and adhering to best practices are all necessary for mastery. Your testing efforts can be improved by utilizing solutions like LambdaTest, which guarantees that your web applications provide outstanding user experiences on a range of devices and browsers. The key features of Selenium WebDriver have been covered in this lesson, giving you the skills you need to efficiently automate your web testing.