This document provides a 10 step guide to using Selenium successfully. It begins by defining a test strategy and choosing a programming language. It then covers Selenium fundamentals like locators and common actions. Steps include writing the first test, implementing page objects, making tests resilient with waits, and adding cross-browser execution. The guide also discusses test frameworks, continuous integration, and finding additional information. The overall goal is to write reusable, maintainable tests that run across browsers to provide automated feedback and catch issues early.
4. Write business valuable tests that are
reusable, maintainable and resilient
across all relevant browsers.
Then package and scale them for
you & your team.
5. Selenium Overview
• What it is — the Reader’s Digest version
• What it is and is not good at
• IDE vs. Local vs. Remote
• Slow, brittle, and hard to maintain?
7. Test Strategy
1. How does your business make money?
2. What features of your application are being used?
3. What browsers are your users using?
4. What things have broken in the app before?
Outcome: What to test and which
browsers to care about
11. Selenium Fundamentals
• Mimics human action
• Uses a few common actions
• Works with “locators”
Locators tell Selenium which HTML
element to interact with
13. Locator Strategies
• Class
• CSS selectors
• ID
• Link Text
• Partial Link Text
• Tag Name
• XPath
Good locators are:
• unique
• descriptive
• unlikely to change
That rules a few of these out
14. Locator Strategies
• Class
• CSS selectors
• ID
• Link Text
• Partial Link Text
• Tag Name
• XPath
Good locators are:
• unique
• descriptive
• unlikely to change
That rules a few of these out
15. Locator Strategies
• Class
• CSS selectors
• ID
• Link Text
• Partial Link Text
• Tag Name
• XPath
Good locators are:
• unique
• descriptive
• unlikely to change
That rules a few of these out
Start with IDs and Classes
16. Locator Strategies
• Class
• CSS selectors
• ID
• Link Text
• Partial Link Text
• Tag Name
• XPath
Good locators are:
• unique
• descriptive
• unlikely to change
That rules a few of these out
Start with IDs and Classes
Use CSS or XPath (with care)
17. Locator Strategies
• Class
• CSS selectors
• ID
• Link Text
• Partial Link Text
• Tag Name
• XPath
CSS vs XPath
http://bit.ly/seleniumbenchmarks
http://bit.ly/cssxpathexamples
18. Finding Quality Locators
• Inspect the page
• Verify your selection
• e.g., FirePath or FireFinder
• http://bit.ly/verifyinglocators
• Learn through gaming
• http://bit.ly/locatorgame
• Conversation
21. Good Test Anatomy
• Write for BDD or xUnit test framework
• Test one thing (atomic)
• Each test can be run independently (autonomous)
• Anyone can understand what it is doing
• Group similar tests together
22. A Login Example
1. Visit the login form
2. Find the login form’s username field and input text
3. Find the login form’s password field and input text
4. Find the submit button and click it
1. or, find the form and submit it
26. Now to find an assertion
1. Login
2. Inspect the page
3. Find a locator
4. Verify it
5. Add it to the test
27.
28.
29. Exception Handling
• org.openqa.selenium.NoSuchElementException:
Unable to locate element: {"method":"css
selector","selector":".flash.error"}
• Most common ones you’ll run into:
NoSuchElement and
StaleElementReferenceError
• A list of all WebDriver exceptions:
http://bit.ly/se-exceptions-java
46. How everything fits together
Test TestTest
Page
Object
Page
Object
Base
Page
Object
Tests use page objects
Page objects inherits the
base page object (a.k.a.
“selenium wrapper”)
The base page object wraps
your Selenium commands
52. Explicit Waits
• Specify an amount of time, and an action
• Selenium will try repeatedly until either:
• The action is completed, or
• The amount of time specified has been reached
(and throw a timeout exception)
62. Reporting & Logging
• Machine readable
e.g., JUnit XML
• Human readable
e.g., screenshots, failure message, stack trace
Fantastic Test Report Tool
http://bit.ly/se-reporter (Allure Framework)
63. Parallelization
• In code
• Through your test runner
• Through your Continuous Integration (CI) server
#protip Enforce random order execution of tests
http://bit.ly/junit-random-order
Recommended approach:
http://bit.ly/mvn-surefire
64. Test Grouping
• Metadata (a.k.a. Categories)
• Enables “test packs”
• Some category ideas
• wip
• shallow
• deep
• story number
More info:
bit.ly/junit-categories
72. Sauce Labs
Additional Considerations
- Test name
- Pass/Fail status
- Secure tunnel
More on Sauce:
http://bit.ly/sauce-platforms
http://bit.ly/sauce-post
http://bit.ly/sauce-tutorial-java
75. Feedback loops
• The goal: Find failures early and often
• Done with continuous integration and notifications
• Notifications
e.g., remote: Email, chat, SMS
in-person: audio/visual, public shaming
77. Simple CI configuration
1. Create a Job
2. Pull In Your Test Code
3. Set up Build Triggers
4. Configure Build steps
5. Configure Test Reports
6. Set up Notifications
7. Run Tests & View The Results
8. High-five your neighbor
80. Steps to solve the puzzle
1. Define a Test Strategy
2. Pick a programming language
3. Use Selenium Fundamentals
4. Write Your First Test
5. Write re-usable and maintainable
test code
6. Make your tests resilient
7. Package your tests into a framework
8. Add in cross-browser execution
9. Build an automated feedback loop
10. Find information on your own
81. Write business valuable tests that are
reusable, maintainable and resilient
across all relevant browsers.
Then package them and scale them
for you & your team.
82. –Dave Haeffner
“You may think your puzzle is unique. But really, everyone is
trying to solve the same puzzle. Yours is just configured
differently — and it’s solvable”