Practical Tips & Tricks for Selenium Test Automation
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The document provides a comprehensive guide on Selenium, including tips and tricks for using headless browsers, visual testing, and configuring proxy servers for traffic capture and manipulation. It also covers file management techniques for uploading and downloading files, as well as strategies for handling A/B testing and managing broken images. Additional resources and links for further learning about Selenium are also included.
Practical Tips & Tricks for Selenium Test Automation
- 1. Selenium Tips & Tricks by Dave Haeffner
- 2. New to Selenium? • Selenium Bootcamp http://se.tips/se-bootcamp • Selenium Guidebook http://se.tips/se-guidebook • Weekly Selenium Tips http://se.tips/se-weekly-tips
- 5. Headless Benefits: - Speed - Maintenance - Screenshotting http://se.tips/all-headless-browsers
- 7. Why use it? Ideal for running small test suites on a headless machine e.g., a Continuous Integration (CI) Server
- 8. NOTE - display port collisions - use unique values - e.g., CI build number
- 9. NOTE - display port collisions - use unique values - e.g., CI build number
- 12. Why use it? • Faster execution times • Also useful for a CI server • Not limited to just Linux
- 13. Step 2 - Start PhantomJS w/ WebDriver flag Step 1 - Download PhantomJS http://phantomjs.org/download.html Step 3 - Connect Your Test to PhantomJS using Selenium Remote NOTE You can also connect PhantomJS to a Selenium Grid http://se.tips/ghost-driver-grid Option 1
- 15. Step 2 - Tell Selenium where it is Step 1 - Download PhantomJS http://phantomjs.org/download.html Step 3 - Launch Selenium with PhantomJS locally Option 2
- 17. Visual Testing
- 18. A Visual Testing Primer • Check that an application’s UI appears correctly • Can also be used to verify content • Hundreds of assertions for a few lines of code
- 19. Visual Testing Challenges • Managing complexity • False positives • e.g., shifting content, dynamic content, typos
- 21. In pom.xml
- 29. Visual Testing Write-ups http://se.tips/se-visual-1 Getting Started http://se.tips/se-visual-2 False Positives part 1 http://se.tips/se-visual-3 False Positives part 2 http://se.tips/se-visual-4 Add Visual Testing To Your Existing Tests http://se.tips/se-visual-5 Add Visual Testing To Your BDD Tests
- 30. Selenium Grid Resources • http://elementalselenium.com/tips/26-cloud • http://elementalselenium.com/tips/52-grid • http://elementalselenium.com/tips/70-grid-extras
- 31. Fun with a Proxy Server
- 35. Configuration • Use a proxy server to capture the traffic from your Selenium test(s) • Find the status code for the action you’re interested in (e.g., visiting a URL) • Assert that the status code is what you expect
- 39. Configuration • Use a proxy server to manipulate the traffic from your Selenium test(s) • Identify third-party resources that are slow to load (which could negatively impact your tests) • Blacklist them (e.g., make it so they don’t load)
- 43. Load Testing http://elementalselenium.com/tips/68-load-testing-revisited
- 44. Configuration • Use a proxy server to capture the traffic from your Selenium test(s) • Convert the HTTP Archive into a JMeter JMX file • Run the new JMX file with JMeter to enact load on your application (modify as needed)
- 48. Broken Image Checking http://elementalselenium.com/tips/67-broken-images
- 49. Option 1 - Proxy Server Option 2 - HTTP Library Option 3 - JavaScript
- 50. Option 1: Proxy Server
- 51. Option 1: Proxy Server
- 52. Option 1: Proxy Server
- 53. Option 2: HTTP Library
- 54. Option 2: HTTP Library
- 55. Option 2: HTTP Library
- 60. Configuration • Use Selenium to trigger a forgot password workflow (to an send to a real email address) and keep the browser session active • Retrieve the e-mail and the password information via the email provider’s API • Use the password information in the active Selenium session (if applicable)
- 61. NOTE - not free - open issue
- 65. • 3 page states available • You can identify which state you’re in because there is different header text for each • When you’re in the control: A/B Test Control • For the variation: A/B Test Variation 1 • When you’re not in a test: No A/B Test http://the-internet.herokuapp.com/abtest
- 66. Configuration • You can easily opt-out of A/B tests by • forging a cookie • appending a query to the URL • This way you get a known state of the page which isn’t likely to change without your knowledge
- 70. File Management
- 73. Options • GUI manipulation with something like AutoIt • Input the file path into the form field (side-stepping the system dialog)
- 76. Two approaches • Configure Selenium to download to local disk, and delete the file when done • Use an HTTP library, perform a HEAD request, and check the headers for the correct content type & length. Why? • An order of magnitude faster using Selenium • No need to download the file
- 77. With Selenium
- 78. With Selenium
- 79. With an HTTP library
- 80. With an HTTP library
- 88. More Selenium Resources • Selenium Bootcamp http://se.tips/se-bootcamp • Weekly Selenium Tips http://se.tips/se-weekly-tips • Weekly Se Tip Code http://se.tips/oss-tip-code • Selenium Guidebook http://se.tips/se-guidebook
- 89. Available in Java and Ruby (C#, Python, & JS coming soon!) https://seleniumguidebook.com