Best Practices for Using Selenium for Test Automation

Business organizations offering Test automation services are using automation tools on a wide scale for the execution of different test case suites. The ultimate goal of automation testing is not to stop using manual testing processes completely. Instead, automation testing is conducted on a wide scale for reducing the counts of the test cases, which are running manually. Automation testing plays an integral role in testing a plethora of multilingual websites within the shortest possible time. It also plays an integral role in enhancing the speed of the test execution.

Selenium automation

There is a wide array of open source applications and tools which have earned a high reputation after 2000 owing to their ease of use, accuracy, repeatability, efficiency, and effectiveness. Selenium has earned a high reputation as one of the most cost-effective open source tools and they offer different advantages of open source tools with regards to application testing.

Selenium is recognized to be a suite for different selenium tools that are useful for testing. It comprises Selenium RC, selenium IDE, Selenium Grid, and Selenium Web Driver. It is used on a wide scale for the automation of regression testing and web interactions. It is also used on a wide scale for the recording as well as the playback features. In addition to this, you will be capable of exporting the scripts which are recorded to different languages such as Python, C#, Java, JavaScript, Ruby, PHP.

Challenges with Selenium testing

Despite the popularity of Selenium, many companies struggle to implement Selenium at scale. Selenium tests are brittle and prone to breaking even with minor UI changes because their scripts use hard-coded selectors like ID or XPATH to identify elements. Functionize avoids this issue because it uses a big data approach and machine learning to accurately identify elements and self-heal tests. This ends up saving an average testing team thousands of hours from test maintenance every year. “

 

Role of selenium in cross-browser testing

As indicated by the name, cross-browser testing refers to a process for the testing of web applications on various devices and web browsers for ensuring that it functions properly on every browser and device seamlessly. Selenium plays an integral role in the automation of different test cases in various browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, IE, and Mozilla Firefox.

Execution of the test case on various browsers from the same machine can occur within Selenium. It provides support to the different operating systems and languages as well. You need to take a look at various practices of Selenium for the automation of the processes of browser-testing:

Using the Right locators

Selenium framework helps in interacting with the browser. It helps in checking, navigating, and typing multiple objects with DOM or Document Object Model. It occurs within a specific set of different actions and makes use of different locators which are inclusive of Xpath, Name, CSS Selector, Link Text, Tag Name, and Class.

Data-driven software testing

If you are using the same code and the same test for various inputs, you can make use of Selenium. It is useful to the software testing and quality assurance team for making different modifications, indicating that you can make use of it for browser compatibility testing and system functional testing. Selenium helps the customers to reap the advantages of the framework. The client can reap the benefits from a proprietary test accelerator and give a kick start to the process of test automation. It plays a vital role in reducing the time of the automation cycle. There are above ninety function libraries that help the client to begin the process of automation.

Do not rely on a certain driver

You should refrain from relying on a specific driver for implementation. You need to gain an understanding that not every driver is not instantaneous in different browsers. For instance, for the execution of the integration test during the development of continuous Linux, you will get RemoteDriver. Thus, you will be capable of creating frameworks of small size with the aid of LabelledParameterized.

You can make use of parameter notes for handling different kinds of browser types and getting ready for the execution of the tests simultaneously.

Selecting the Selector Order

It is recommended to choose the selector order as the selectors such as CSS and XPath are based, in accordance with the location. They are known to be slow, in comparison to Link Text, Name, and ID. The ID and Name are known to be direct way selectors as well as straightforward.

Utilization of PageObjects

PageObject is receiving a high reputation as it introduces the most unique design pattern during test automation. It plays an integral role in increasing test automation. It is also effective in reducing and preventing any duplicity in the codes. Also, PageObjects is recognized to be an object-oriented class that functions as the interface to the app page.

Wait and say no to Thread Sleep

You should ensure to use wait, instead of sleep. You require gaining an understanding of implicit as well as explicit wait.

Usage of JRE 1.6, Java Runtime Environment

Java is used for programming the Selenium Server. Hence, in case you face any runtime error, you need to make use of the most updated and current version. The (JRE) 1.6 contributes to being the Java Runtime environment, which is necessary for running the Selenium server.

Close of Firebug start page

If you want to launch the Firefox driver, you should be including the firebug. It is known to work perfectly at certain times. However, if you are planning to open the new firebug tab at the time of launching the browser is irritating you; it is recommended to set False in the specific flag of “showFirstRunPage”.

Making preparations for the browsers

In case you find that the browser is not working properly, you require making certain adjustments so that it might work. You require setting the level of browser zoom to 100%. This will be useful for the conduction of native mouse events for the alignment of the coordinates.

You need to fix the Protected Mode Settings for different zones. Regardless of whether it is off or on, it should be the same for every zone. You can do it by enabling the Protected Mode in the Security Tab for every zone.

The ways for the stabilization of the automation of web tests depend on you completely. Selenium helps you in developing a trusted, true as well as stable automation technique for the user interface.