Can you wrap up your entire test suite by only performing manual testing? No? This is because modern apps have become so complex that you need thousands of different test cases to verify their functioning. It becomes almost impossible to complete all these test cases correctly with only human dependency. This is what exactly test automation platforms like Selenium try to resolve. Not familiar with what is Selenium?
Don’t worry! We are here for you. Our article will help you improve your understanding of Selenium, beginning from the fundamental architecture and going all the way to the most effective best practices. We will also take a quick look at certain advanced techniques for Selenium along with its enterprise-level implementation.
What is Selenium
Since our primary question for this article is Selenium, it is only justice that we begin with this topic. In simple terms, it is an open-source test suite that helps you implement web automation testing on your modern applications. The test suite of Selenium consists of multiple individual tools like Selenium WebDriver, the Selenium Integrated Development Environment, and the Selenium Grid to assist you at different stages of the development process.
To shed more light over the individual segments and tools of Selenium, let us understand them one by one:
- We will begin with the Selenium WebDriver as many people are not aware of what is Selenium WebDriver, although it is the most important component of the entire test suite. This tool is basically responsible for initiating the automation test scenarios and also redirecting them to the respective elements for the execution process. It is often considered as an upgraded version of the remote controller as it does not require a dedicated test engine for execution.
- Next, comes the Selenium Integrated Development Environment, which helps to implement codeless automation testing. It achieves this goal by analyzing the user interactions in real-time and generating the respective test cases. It is the perfect option to get started with automation testing by creating basic testing scenarios.
- The Selenium Grid is responsible for distributing and running the tests across multiple machines and browsers at the same time. This is the perfect option for initiating parallel testing on your web applications. To achieve this goal, Selenium Grid acts as a hub that is connected to multiple nodes, each representing the individual elements on the application.
Why Selenium
Now, you might ask that, as there are thousands of different test frameworks available in the market, why should we bother about Selenium. To justify this question, let us go through some of the major features that are available with Selenium:
- With Selenium, you have the freedom to run your test cases on all the popular OSs like Windows, Mac, and Linux. Not only that, you can also target popular browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Microsoft Edge. This is the perfect setup for implementing both cross-platform testing and cross-browser testing at the same time.
- While using Selenium, you can create the automation test scripts in any of your preferred programming languages like Java, Python, Ruby, and JavaScript. This is a very important parameter so that the testers can eliminate the initial learning curve for any individual tool or framework.
- While using Selenium, you can easily integrate other tools and testing frameworks like JUnit, Jenkins, LambdaTest, and many others.
- Finally, since it is an open-source testing suite, it has a massive community of developers and testers who are constantly working to improve the testing experience with this tool. Moreover, as a new tester, you can always refer to this community whenever you are stuck with any feature of Selenium.
Setting Up The Selenium Environment
To set up the Selenium environment for executing automation testing, you have to follow certain steps in the correct order. To assist the new testers with this workflow, we have mentioned all the required steps in the chronological order:
Selecting A Programming Language
As we already mentioned earlier, Selenium’s massive advantage is its language-agnostic nature. So, the choice of your programming language will mostly depend on your team’s skill set and project requirements.
You can choose Java as it is a long standing tradition in enterprise environments with extensive library support. On the other hand, you can choose C# as it is the go to option for .NET. Python, on the other hand, is known for quick prototyping, readability, and its rich ecosystem of libraries.
Installing Required Dependencies
After choosing your preferred programming language for creating the automation test scripts, you have to choose the required dependencies. For example, if you choose Java as your preferred language, you have to install Java and then create a Maven project from the IDE or the command line.
To add Selenium dependency in pom.xml, you have to run the following code snippet in the terminal window:
Depending on the target browsers for executing cross-browser testing, you will need a driver binary like ChromeDriver for Google Chrome. You can also rely on various tools like WebDriver Manager that can automatically manage these binaries and ensure a smooth implementation.
First Selenium Test
The final step in the setup process is to create your first Selenium test. To help you understand the test case creation process, we have mentioned a sample Selenium script below:
The above script will help you open a browser window, navigate to the target website, print the title, and close the window. Depending on the test completion, it will also generate the test report and help you understand whether the test passed or failed.
Advanced Selenium Techniques
Below, we have mentioned some of the most advanced Selenium techniques for modern web development:
- You can consider using headless browsers that will initiate only the command line without the graphical user interface to save a lot of system resources and improve the testing efficiency. The following code snippet will allow you to perform this step:
- Modern web browsers use iFrames, pop-up windows, and JavaScript alerts. Selenium provides dedicated methods for these scenarios. For example, the following code will help you to switch to an iFrame for the testing process:
driver.switchTo().frame(“frameNameOrId”);
- When a test case fails, you can capture a screenshot to assist in the debugging process that will follow soon after. Selenium’s “TakeScreenshot” interface will help you here. The following code snippet will help you implement this process:
- Finally, Selenium can automate mobile web testing using Chrome mobile emulators or by connecting with Appium for hybrid apps. If you’re working on simple use cases, the device emulation flags will mimic screen sizes or user agents for the testing process.
Scaling Selenium Tests In The Cloud
Selenium Grid will help you to run the test cases on multiple test nodes on-site. However, setting up and maintaining your infrastructure of thousands of real devices is not only time consuming but also massively expensive. As an alternative, you can consider cloud platforms like LambdaTest for this purpose.
If you are not familiar with what is Selenium and what is Selenium WebDriver, there is a high possibility that you are also not familiar with LambdaTest. It 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.
LambdaTest uses the Selenium WebDriver endpoints to run your test cases on the respective elements, and the cloud devices for the execution process. To shed more light for this segment, we have mentioned a sample code snippet that can help you execute the entire workflow:
You should also remember that after executing the test cases, LambdaTest will automatically generate comprehensive test reports that will consist of multiple screenshots and videos captured automatically from different stages of the test execution process. The purpose of these multimedia elements is to assist you find the faulty elements and implement the required resolution steps.
Best Practices For Selenium Testing
While testing your modern applications with Selenium, there are multiple best practices that you can implement to improve the efficiency of the testing architecture. To shed more light over this segment, we have mentioned some of the major ones on this list:
● Page Object Models
The Page Object Model is one of the most popularly adopted design patterns to structure your Selenium tests. In this approach, each page or component of the application is represented by an included class that encapsulates the locators and the actions.
A Page Object Model not only helps improve the readability of the test script but also improves its maintainability and reusability. To implement Page Object Models, you can use the code snippet that we have mentioned below:
● Single Responsive Principle
We suggest the testers to aim for each test to validate a specific feature or user workflow that has been implemented on the application. This is because tests that try to verify everything in one go become brittle and challenging to debug. Moreover, it also helps you to easily keep track of the current status of the application development and testing process.
● Avoiding Fragile Locators
We suggest the testers to use stable attributes like ID or name whenever available to find the respective elements on the application. CSS selectors can be more readable and flexible than XPaths, although both have their unique implementation criteria. Finally, you must resist the urge to rely on dynamically generated attributes unless it is absolutely necessary as per the requirements of the project.
● Synchronization And Waits
The webpage’s dynamic content will break if the script attempts to interact with elements before they are loaded on the user interface. To tackle with these challenges, Selenium offers various wait mechanisms like Implicit Waits and Explicit Waits.
Implicit Waits will help you set a default polling period. While Explicit wait polls for a specific condition like the element visibility. To implement the waiting mechanism, you can use code snippets like the sample one that we have mentioned below:
The Bottom Line
Based on all the factors that we have put forward in this article, we can easily say that with the increasing user expectations, automation testing with tools like Selenium will be the backbone of improving the modern user interface testing solutions. By adopting all the best practices that we put forward in this article, you can create a suite of tests that is maintainable, robust, and future-proof at the same time.
Finally, by carefully creating your Selenium test environment, you will not only improve the quality and reliability of your apps but also increase the speed of the entire development life cycle. This practice will play a very important role in establishing your brand as one of the most reputed and customer-focused in the market.
