Selenium WebDriver Training

What is Selenium Webdriver?

Webdriver is known to be the latest version of Selenium i.e. Selenium 2.x. More powerful than the primitive Selenium rc 1.x and comes with lots and lots of libraries and new features to work with. It’s not mandatory to know Selenium RC to work with Webdriver. You can directly learn webdriver and start working on it. There is no need of selenium server if you are working with Webdriver API

What makes it different from Selenium RC?

• More object oriented as compare to Selenium RC.
• Has wider range of APIs
• Interacts natively with browser where as Selenium RC is Javascript based.
• Can test Iphone and Andriod based application which is not supported by Selenium RC.
• Implements HTMLUnit driver which makes test execution really fast.
• Unlike Selenium RC there is no server in Webdriver.
• Supports almost all lastest web browsers where as Selenium RC does not works on latest versions on Firefox and IE.

WebDriver Architecture

Selenium WebDriver – Interview Questions

1: What is Selenium Web Driver?
Answer:  Selenium Web driver uses accessibility API to drive the browser and recognizes the object in web-based application. It allows writing automated tests replicating the behavior of real user, e.g. Clicking on a link or feeding data in an edit box. Using Selenium Web Driver together with any programming language and other testing framework like TestNG and JUnit, automation test framework to execute tests on different browsers can be created. We can use the robust features of the programming language to interact with other components of application like database interaction, files interaction to create a robust and reliable framework.
 2: What are the various browsers supported by Selenium WebDriver?
Answer: WebDriver available for automation in different browsers are ChromeDriver, InternetExplorerDriver, FirefoxDriver, OperaDriver and HtmlUnitDriver.
 3: What are the programming languages supported by WebDriver?
Answer: Python, Ruby, C#, Java, Perl, php and javascript are supported.
 4: What are the necessary steps required, before I start creating selenium tests on java using eclipse?
Answer: We require following configuration to be set up before creating test in eclipse:

1.  Java needs to be installed in the machine.
2.  Eclipse IDE needs to be installed.
3.  Selenium Libraries for WebDriver should be available.

 5: Do we need to install some additional executable files working with Selenium WebDriver?
Answer: For Firefox driver, we do not require any additional executable as it is bundled with Java client bindings, For IE driver, Chrome driver, and Opera driver, we require additional executable that can be downloadable from Selenium Official website.
An example of how to create an instance of Internet Explorer Web Driver is shown in below example.
6: Is there any specific pre-condition before executing a selenium script on Internet Explorer?
Answer: Yes, Protected Mode settings should be same for all zones. Enable Protected Mode must be set to the same value (enabled or disabled) for all zones.
 7: What are Firefox profile preferences?
Answer: Using Firefox Profile, we can set the preferences for the Firefox in the profile.
The steps to define profile in Selenium are:
1.  Create an object of firefox profile
FirefoxProfile profile = new FirefoxProfile();
2.   Set the required preference of the firefox :
profile.setPreference(“browser.startup.homepage”,”http://www.google.com”)
3.  Create the driver object with profile as defined above.
WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver(profile);
8: What is the use of using TestNG with selenium in Java?
Answer: TestNG is a unit testing framework used for java programming language. Test Cases using Selenium Webdriver to identify webelement in the web application can be integrated/created on TestNG framework. Some of the useful features TestNG provides are as follows:
1.  Using Annotation to describe order of test cases, defining start conditions and end condition using  @after and @before annotations.

Selenium IDE: Interview Questions with Answers

1:  Explain the various features provided by Selenium IDE?
Answer: The layout of Selenium IDE is divided into following four areas:
1. MenuBar – Following are the menu options available in Selenium IDE:
 a.   File – Allows creating new test case, test suite, open existing test case, test suite, exporting tests to other formats.
 b.   Edit – Allows editing existing test steps, and adding new commands and comments.
 c.   Actions – Allows to record, play a test, execute command, toggle breakpoint and set entry point.
 d.  Options – Allows the changing of settings including set the timeout value for commands and specifying the format used for saving test cases.
 e.  Help – provides documentation for selenium IDE.
   2.  Toolbar – Provides buttons to manage test execution including test execution and test execution.
   3.  Test Case Pane – Test Case Pane shows the list of test case on the left and test steps in table or
source pane on the right. We can add/modify commands, target and value in the table for the test.
    4.  Log/Reference/UI-Element/Rollup Pane – This pane helps us to view logs of execution, reference explaining the selected command. We can also set to filter logs for info, warning, error and debug in this window.
 2: Explain what are the various items available from file menu
Answer: From the File Menu, We can perform various tasks
a.  Create New Test Case.
b.   Create new Test Suite.
c.   Save test cases and test suites.

1.    Export Test cases/test suites to various formats. E.g : Ruby/Python/java/c# with WebDriver or RC.
2.   Open existing test cases and test suites.

d.   Rename a test case.
3: Can the script prepared in Selenium IDE be used with webdriver/Remote control?
Answer: Yes, the script created in Selenium IDE can be exported to WebDriver/Remote Control in the languages java/c#/python/ruby that can be run using junit(java), RSpec(ruby), nUnit.
4: My Application is running slowly, can I change the default timeout value of recorder command?
Answer: We can reset the default timeout value for recorded command from Options Menu. By default the timeout is set as 30000 ms. In options, we can also define the recording settings and order of locator preference for object identification.
 5: What is the short cut key to create a new test in Selenium IDE?
Answer: The shortcut key to create a new test in Selenium IDE is Ctrl + N.
Some other useful shortcut keys in Selenium are:
Open a test – Ctrl + O :  Save a test – Ctrl + S  : Add test to test suite : Ctrl + D.
 6: What is the use of Select and find button in target in Selenium IDE?
Answer: On clicking on select, we can add the locator of an element in the page. Click on Select and click on an element in the page, the locator for the element will be added in the target. Find helps us to verify object exists in the page and highlights the object in the page if exists, else error is displayed in the log.

How to Configure Eclipse to work with Selenium

Before starting working with Selenium using Eclipse IDE, we did some configuration that needs to be done for starting and understanding Selenium. This post will explain step wise, how to start working with selenium using Eclipse:

Pre- Conditions: We will require following before beginning the configuration:
1. Java needs to be installed in the machine.
2. Eclipse IDE needs to be installed .
3. Standalone libraries of selenium, at the time of writing this post, I am using selenium-server-standalone-2.33.0.jar
4. Verify in Path variable in User defined variable for machine, is set to the path where standalone libraries is placed as shown below

Configuration Steps: 

Step 1: In eclipse, create a new java project as shown below from File>New Java Project

Create a new Java Project

Step 2: Once a java project is created, right click on project and select option “Build Path>Configure build path

Configure build path of project

Step 3: Click on Add External JAR’s and add the selenium standalone jar as shown below.

 Step 4: Now in src for the project, Add a new package, and add a new class as shown below.

Select methods stubs to create as public static void main(String[] args)

                                         

Step 5: Write the code in the class created above and execute. This will open Google in internet explorer . Write selenium in search and click on search.

Code to be placed in void main:

WebDriver ieDriver = new InternetExplorerDriver();

ieDriver.get(“http://www.google.com”);

WebElement element = ieDriver.findElement(By.name(“q”));

element.sendKeys(“selenium”);

element.submit();

How to take a screenshot in Selenium Webdriver

code will help you how to take a snapshot in selenium webdriver.

Also one thing noticed is that sometimes “import org.openqa.selenium. TakesScreenshot;” this import don’t appear and you have to manually add this line to your code to make this work. import java.io.File;
import org.apache.commons.io.FileUtils;
import org.openqa.selenium.OutputType;
import org.openqa.selenium.TakesScreenshot;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver;
import org.testng.annotations.AfterTest;
import org.testng.annotations.BeforeMethod;
import org.testng.annotations.Test;
public class Chrome {
WebDriver driver;
@BeforeMethod
public void launchChrome()
{
System.setProperty(“webdriver.chrome.driver”, “E:\Harsimran-PC\workspace\chromedriver_win_26.0.1383.0\chromedriver.exe”);
driver = new ChromeDriver();
driver.get(“http://google.co.in”);
}
@Test
public void googleScreenshot()
{
try {
File scrnsht =((TakesScreenshot)driver).getScreenshotAs(OutputType.FILE);
// This is where magic happens FileUtils.copyFile(scrnsht, new
File(“e:\google_page.png”));
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
@AfterTest
public void kill()
{
driver.close();
}
}