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Selenium Automation Testing: A Step-by-Step Beginner's Guide

by Syntax Technologies Software Testing Training

All web application developers should be well-versed in Selenium, an open-source, automated testing tool. Selenium automated testing is the term used to describe testing carried out with Selenium. Selenium, however, is a group of tools that each serve a specific purpose for Selenium automated testing. You will learn everything there is to know about Selenium and the numerous Selenium Automation Testing tools in this tutorial.

Selenium Automation Testing Overview

Tools for Selenium Automation Testing

Selenium IDE

Installing IDE:

Recording a test

Work Saved

Playback

Remote control for selenium (RC)

Selenium WebDriver

Selenium Grid

Conclusion

Selenium Automation Testing Overview

Let's first talk about the necessity for Selenium automation testing and how Selenium came to be, though, before we go into this Selenium automation testing course.

Unfortunately, manual testing, which is an essential step in the development of applications, has numerous drawbacks, the most significant of which is that it is a tedious and repeated procedure. Jason Huggins, an engineer at Thoughtworks, made the decision to automate the testing procedure to get around these difficulties. He created the JavaScriptTestRunner, a JavaScript software for automating web application testing. In 2004, the program's name was changed to Selenium.

Selenium automation testing has the drawback of only being able to test online applications, leaving desktop and mobile apps out in the cold. However, software and mobile applications may be tested using tools like HP's QTP and Appium, among others.

Tools for Selenium Automation Testing

Selenium IDE

Everything you need to know about Selenium IDE is covered in the following section of the Selenium Automation Testing Certifications tutorial. The Selenium Integrated Development Environment (IDE) was created in 2006 by Shinya Kasatani. Typically, it is a simple user interface that logs user interactions so that automated test scripts can be created. It is a Chrome or Firefox plugin that is typically utilised as a prototype tool. It was primarily created to facilitate the rapid development of automation scripts.

When Firefox upgraded to the new Firefox 55 version, which did not support Selenium IDE, IDE ceased to exist in August 2017. A new version of the outdated Selenium IDE was been released by Applitools. The most recent version introduced various improvements, including:

· script reuse for tests

· testing scripts for bugs

· Siderunner for selenium

· Control flow statements are allowed

· enhanced locating capabilities

Installing IDE:

First, launch the Firefox web browser.

Step 2: Select "Menu" from the top right corner.

Step 3: In the drop-down box, select Add-ons.

Step 4: Select Find additional add-ons and enter "Selenium IDE"

In Step 5, select Add to Firefox.

After installation, the Selenium IDE symbol displays in the browser's upper right corner. Upon clicking it, a welcome message is displayed.

Recording a test

We will learn how to record a test in this section of the Selenium automation testing course. Let's start by writing a fresh test for a fresh project. Give your project a name; in this case, we'll call it demo project. We need to specify a working URL first before recording. Once the browser arrives at this URL, the recording gets started. Go to the Facebook login page now.

You will be directed to the Facebook page and can begin recording user interactions there by clicking "Start Recording." The user has the option to halt recording. Every user action is captured and turned into a script.

Work Saved

In the following section of this Selenium Automation Testing tutorial, we'll cover how to save your work. Click the save symbol in the top-right corner of the IDE to save what you've just done there. You will be asked to provide the project a name and a location to save it. One file with the a.side extension is produced as a result.

Playback

In-browser: By choosing the test you want to replay and hitting the Play button in the Selenium automation testing IDE, you may playback tests.

You can use the command-line-runner for cross-browser playback.

Remote control for selenium (RC)

This Selenium automation testing tutorial also discusses Remote Control, or RC, which is an intriguing subject. It also discusses the primary justification for the creation of RC. Selenium Remote Control was developed by Paul Hammant.

Jason Huggins created a tool called "JavaScriptTestRunner" in 2004 that was the original name of Selenium-Core. It was a collection of JavaScript functions that used the built-in JavaScript interpreter in the browser to decipher and carry out Selenese commands. The web browser was then given an injection of Selenium-Core.

Consider the JavaScript file test.js that Google.com uses as an example. Within the google.com domain, this software can visit pages like google.com/mail or google.com/login.

The software, however, is unable to access components on other websites, such as Yahoo.com. The web browser and Selenium-Core required to be installed locally in order for them to share the same domain. This restriction is known as the Same Origin Policy, and Selenium RC was created to work around it. It "trickles" the browser into thinking that Selenium Core and the web application being tested have the same origin by acting as a client-configured HTTP proxy.

As a result, Selenium RC is a Java server that allows for the creation of application tests in a variety of computer languages, including Java, C#, Perl, PHP, Python, etc. The Selenium-Core JavaScript commands are passed to the browser by the RC server after being received from the user programme.

WebDriver for Selenium

Everything about Selenium WebDriver is covered in the following section of the Selenium Automation Testing Courses tutorial. Selenium WebDriver, created by Simon Stewart in 2006, was the first cross-platform testing framework capable of configuring and managing browsers at the OS level. In order to design and execute test cases, it acted as a programming interface.

In contrast to Selenium RC, WebDriver works directly with the browser apps and doesn't need a core engine like RC. Additionally, WebDriver supports a number of programming languages, including Perl, PHP, Ruby, and Python. For managing Selenium automated testing, it can also be coupled with frameworks like TestNG and JUnit.

The architecture of Selenium WebDriver is straightforward and simple to comprehend:

· The test code written in any of the aforementioned programming languages and read by the driver is known as a "Selenium test script."

· Data can be transferred between a server and a client using the JSON Wire Protocol, which offers a transport method for doing so. For many types of web services, JSON Wire Protocol serves as the industry standard.

· Browser drivers: To create a secure connection with the browser, Selenium utilises drivers that are unique to each browser.

· Browsers: Selenium WebDriver supports a number of different web browsers for testing and using apps.

Tutorial for Selenium WebDriver -

1. Install Java 8 or a later version by downloading it. Download and install the most recent Java development kit.

2. Installing Eclipse or another Java IDE of your choice after downloading

Click on the most recent version in the "additional downloads" section as you go down the page.

Zip files are what will be downloaded. In a folder of your choice, unzip the file. Open the eclipse file.exe after unzipping it.

The configuration of a workplace is the following phase. Click the launch icon after choosing the directory where you wish to keep all of your projects.

The IDE workbench seems something like this after it has been launched.

3. Download the Java client for Selenium WebDriver.

Go to the Selenium website's main page.

Locate Selenium Client and WebDriver Language Bindings by scrolling down the page.

To download the Java Client Driver, click the image's "Download" link.

Download the file, then unzip it in a directory. It contains of the Jar files needed for Selenium WebDriver's IDE configuration.

4. Download the browser driver. All browsers must be supported by the automation scripts. The driver files for each supported browser by Selenium are included. To execute the scripts, these are necessary.

5. Configure Selenium WebDriver - The Selenium WebDriver must be set up with the Eclipse IDE in order to complete the process. To put it simply, we start a new Java project and write our test script there.

Name your project, then choose the JRE you want to use. Use of the default JRE is advised. Choose it, then click "finish."

The final and most important step is to upload the Java executable files that were downloaded [Step 3]. Right-click on the Project and choose Configure Build Path from the Build Path menu.

After choosing libraries, add external JARs.

Select the two executable JAR files by opening the folders where you've saved your JAR files. To include them, click on open.

Click on the "libs" folder, then "Select Files" and "Open."

Click Apply and Close after you are finished adding the library files.

With this, the Webdriver and Eclipse IDE have been successfully configured. You can now create your initial test script.

To do so, right-click the Src folder and select "New>>Class."

Now let's construct a straightforward test script that starts Firefox and displays the Facebook home page. Below is a script that you can use.

The location of your browser driver is the second argument to the setProperty function, take note. In our situation, the gecko driver has been installed. As a result, we paste the path and the file's name.

Then select Run>>Run As.

Application in Java

Selenium Grid

You will learn all about Selenium Grid, which was created by Patrick Lightbody to reduce the execution time of Selenium automation testing, in the following section of this lesson on Selenium automation testing. Selenium Grid facilitates parallel execution by enabling test execution across several operating systems and browsers. Grid is incredibly adaptable and integrates with other elements of the suite for concurrent performance.

The Grid is made up of a hub and multiple connected nodes. Along with the test to be done, it also collects data on the operating system and browser that will be used. The Grid then selects a node and passes the test to that node if it complies with the specifications (browser and platform). At this point, the node launches the browser and carries out the Selenium commands inside of it.

Conclusion

You should now have a better understanding of Selenium and how it functions after reading this Selenium Automation Testing lesson. In this lesson, you will discover how to use Python with Selenium.

You need obtain course certification if you want to start a profession as an automation engineer. Check out the Selenium Automated Testing on Syntax Technologies to develop your Selenium abilities into a strong and useful resource.