Don’t even know what is Selenium, when it comes to automation testing? This means that although you are thinking in the right direction, you still do not have even a basic understanding of this industry.
This can be a massive obstacle considering the importance of automation testing in modern software development. Don’t worry! We are here for you. Our article will help you understand everything about Selenium, its features, and all the tools that are present within it. We will also give you some of the best practices and strategies that will help you use Selenium to create highly effective automation test suites.
What Is Selenium
What better way to start the discussion than answering the primary question of this blog? Selenium is an open-source automation testing tool that you can use to check web apps on multiple browsers and platforms. If you think Selenium is a standalone tool, you’re highly mistaken. Why? This is because Selenium is a test suite that consists of multiple tools which will help you at different stages of the development and testing process.
You must remember that the primary use case of Selenium is to run automated testing on modern web-based apps. It will also allow the QA testers and developers to automate various repetitive tasks to improve the testing efficiency, but also the quality of the application that you’re currently working on.
Components Of Selenium
Since we told you that Selenium is a test suite that consists of multiple tools to help you at different stages of the testing process, it is only fair that we provide you with more information about all these tools and how they can help you in your project:
- Let’s begin our discussion with Selenium IDE, which is the basis of executing codeless automation testing on your applications. While you are using this tool, the system will be able to analyze various forms of user interactions and generate the test cases accordingly. You also have the option of migrating these test scripts to any of your chosen programming languages for better understandability.
- Next comes the Selenium WebDriver, which is also called the backbone of the entire test suite. Why? This single tool is responsible for initiating and running all the test cases on the dedicated elements of your web application. It also has the power to run the tests in the own environment of a browser without worrying about any dedicated third-party test engine.
- The Selenium client API is a tool which provides the test case generation flexibility to the testers. How, you ask? This is because with the help of this tool, you can create the automation test scripts in any of your preferred programming languages. Then? The system will automatically convert this test into a language that it can understand to begin the test execution process.
- Finally, the Selenium Grid is the center pillar to help you initiate parallel testing on your web applications. If you don’t know what is parallel testing, it is the process of running multiple test cases on different configurations and devices at the same time. To implement this process, the Selenium Grid adopts the principle of a hub that is communicating with multiple nodes at the same time.
Advantages of Selenium
Now that we have developed a basic understanding of what is Selenium and all of its individual components, it is time we divert our attention towards some of the major advantages of Selenium. This knowledge is very important to understand whether the integration of this testing tool will be beneficial, depending on your testing needs:
- Since Selenium is a completely open-source suite, you do not have to worry about any licensing costs or locking yourself into a proprietary service. It also has a huge community of developers and testers who are always ready to help you with any feature of the testing process whenever you are making the initial shift.
- Selenium has the flexibility to create the automation test scripts in multiple languages and add them with multiple frameworks to improve the extensibility. This approach will also help you to easily adapt your testing infrastructure to complex testing scenarios and application development needs.
- With the help of Selenium Grid, you can wrap up an entire test suite, often consisting of thousands of different individual tests, within just a few hours. This is a very important parameter to quickly deliver your applications while upholding the original quality of your test suites.
- If you’re using Selenium to create your automation test scripts, you can easily modify them and reuse segments in future application development projects as well. This is a very important approach to ensure better maintainability and efficiency of the overall testing infrastructure.
- As we already mentioned earlier, Selenium has a huge community of developers. So, other than helping you in the initial phases, this community also works to add new features and elaborate documentations, which will constantly improve the testing experience with this suite.
Selenium Limitations
Although Selenium comes with huge benefits, it also has its own share of limitations. So, it is very important for you to be aware of these limitations so that we do not face any unwanted obstacles during your testing process:
- While using Selenium for initiating automation testing, you can run the test cases on only web applications. If you have any other scope, like native apps or hybrid apps, you will be forced to look for an alternative solution.
- The initial phases of setting up the environment to run the automation test cases with Selenium will be very complex, especially for the newcomers to the industry. It also has a very complex learning time where the testers and developers have to get accustomed to all the features and offerings of Selenium.
- While using Selenium, you will quickly realize that it does not have any built-in reporting features. Therefore, you will need to have some form of third-party integration to achieve these features. The most commonly used tools for this purpose include TestNG and JUnit.
How To Use Selenium WebDriver
Since we mentioned that the Selenium WebDriver is the most important part of running the automated web app test cases with Selenium, you need to integrate this tool for running all your test cases. Curious about the installation process? The following steps will help you with this process:
- The first step is to pinpoint the programming language that you will use to create your automation test scripts. Then, you need to install that on your testing machine.
- After this, you have to download the dedicated WebDriver version for the browsers that you will be targeting in the test cases. For example, if you have chosen Google Chrome for running your test cases, you need to download the ChromeDriver.
- The final step in the setup process is to have an IDE like IntelliJ IDEA or Eclipse so that you can simplify the script creation and also the debugging steps that will follow soon after.
- Now that you have set up Selenium WebDriver for running the test cases, you are completely prepared to write your first automation test script with Selenium. For the sake of understanding, we have also given a sample test script that we have written using the Java programming language:
Best Practices For Selenium Testing
Finally, let us divert our attention to some of the best practices that we highly recommend the testers while using Selenium testing to test their web applications. These practices have been carefully devised to help you use the full potential of a test environment and also increase the quality of the application:
Use Cloud Testing
While using automation testing with suites like Selenium, it is equally important to add real device testing to understand how the performance of your web applications changes when they are exposed to the physical parameters of a real device.
Considering the expense and hassle of a device lab, developers often avoid this step and only restrict the test cases to emulation and simulation software. But what if we told you that there was a better alternative that can help you achieve similar accuracy while eliminating the expenses?
It’s simple! You need to start investing in cloud-based testing platforms like LambdaTest. Now, if you’re a new tester who does not know what is Selenium and what is Selenium WebDriver, there is a high possibility that you’re not aware of these platforms as well. Don’t worry! We have got you covered here as well!
LambdaTest is an AI-native test orchestration and execution platform that lets you perform manual and automation testing at scale with over 5000+ browsers, OS combinations, and 5000+ real devices.
Use Wait Methods
Modern applications use multiple dynamic elements to further improve the user experience. These elements often change their placement and functioning depending on the backend configurations or the user interactions.
Testing these elements using traditional test cases can be of massive challenge as they often return flaky test reports. With Selenium, you have native access to various WebDriver wait methods like explicit waits and implicit waits.
Using these methods, you can automatically pause the test execution process until these elements become visible and interactable on the user interface of your app. Then? The system automatically resumes the test cases and gives you the final report.
Maintain The Balance
While you initially start investing in automation testing, it is a huge temptation to completely eliminate manual testing and use automation only. It is a massive mistake as there are certain test cases that can never be automated. For example, exploratory testing is a process in which you use the manual experience to find areas that are often overlooked by automation test cases.
The perfect balance is to use automation testing for the repetitive test cases and human experience for the unique and complex areas.
The Bottom Line
Based on all the factors that we have put forward in this article, we can easily see that Selenium is one of the most important parts of modern web automation. This is mostly due to its flexible features, scalable architecture, and wide range of support.
All the strategies and best practices that we have mentioned in this article will help you not only improve the productivity of a testing environment but will also have a direct impact on the quality of the application that you’re currently working on.
You should also remember that the industry of automation testing is constantly changing to incorporate various new features and trends. It is very important to watch out for all the upcoming innovations so that you can quickly integrate them and provide the best experience to your customers, that will be crucial for your brand.
