Selenium WebDriver Automation: From Beginner to Expert

Do you face challenges in ensuring data consistency and maintaining the integrity of tests? Do lagging behaviors on web pages result in rendering issues, where the automation script may not wait for elements to load or actions to complete before proceeding, leading to test failures? 

Selenium WebDriver is the best answer for seamless web application testing and online automation. This blog walks readers through the basic features of Selenium WebDriver, breaking down each of its essential parts and explaining WebDriver’s functioning in detail.

What is Selenium?

Selenium is for tech experts and developers to automate browser automation; it’s open-source, cross-browser compatible, and simplifies online testing. Testing online apps is like having an intelligent companion that handles monotonous chores like button presses, form filling, and seamless website navigation.

The fact that Selenium is multilingual and can grasp popular programming languages like Java, Python, C#, Ruby, and others is truly amazing. So, it is the adaptable software you need in your toolbox, regardless of your level of expertise in testing or coding. 

Top businesses like software development, machine learning, and artificial intelligence use Selenium for testing and quality assurance.

What is WebDriver?

One element of the entire Selenium framework that aids with general browser-based test automation is WebDriver. WebDriver is a component of the remote control interface that enables tools to manage the User Agent’s behavior, communicate with and instruct browsers, and alter DOM elements in web content.

The Selenium framework uses WebDriver’s language-neutral protocols—that is, protocols independent of any particular language—to automate testing procedures. In summary, WebDriver is a conduit between the Selenium framework and the end browser the test is running through.

Selenium WebDriver Architecture

Understanding Web-UI automation with Selenium WebDriver requires a thorough understanding of the tool’s architecture. Let’s explore the essential elements and lay the groundwork for a fascinating exploration of the core of the Selenium WebDriver architecture.

Selenium WebDriver architecture in Selenium 4

Intriguingly, the web driver in Selenium version 3.8 supported both W3C and JSON wire protocols. However, as of version 4.0, Selenium solely uses the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standard. Nowadays, almost all browsers and language bindings employ the W3C, which facilitates more accessible communication between the client and server (driver).

The following is a list of enhancements in Selenium 4 using the new protocol:

• Common: Standard code Nearly every client library and browser has already embraced the W3C standard.
• Stability: Less distinct browser exceptions during runtime.
• Action API: Allows multiple keyboard and mouse actions, such as pressing two keys simultaneously and zooming in and out.
• ChromiumDriver was introduced (it is currently extended by Edge and Chrome drivers).
• Enhanced Preferred Capability
• They remove legacy code, resulting in a more optimized and clean Selenium codebase.

After the release of Selenium 4.0, many stable versions have been made available to users, providing them with increased advantages due to more reliable and consistent test executions in a broader range of browsers. Better execution times have been attained by removing the request and response Encoding-Decoding procedure and optimizing the code base. After learning about the architecture, let’s examine the Selenium WebDriver installation procedure.

Selenium WebDriver Installation 

We go over how to configure Selenium WebDriver with Java on the Windows operating system in this section of the Selenium WebDriver tutorial.  Though the Eclipse IDE is used in this post to show the settings, you are welcome to use any other IDE.

Let’s start with the requirements:

1. Install Java.
2. Install the Eclipse IDE.
3. Configuring the WebDriver for Selenium.

Install Java

1. Download the JDK for Windows x64 Installer from the official Java Downloads website.
2. Click on Download after accepting the license agreement that pops up.
3. Once the download is finished, open the Downloads folder and double-click the program to install Java on your computer.

Configure Environment Variables

1. Select “Advanced system settings” from the System dialogue window when you open your PC’s settings.
2. In the window that appears, click the Environment Variables icon.
3. Double-click Path under the System variables.
4. Enter the full path to the Java installation directory based on the location of your machine and click OK.

You’re done. As you can see, the Java path on my system is the highest in the screenshot. And there you have it—your initial requirement has been met. Eclipse installation comes next.

Install Eclipse

1. Go to the official Eclipse website and download the Eclipse IDE for Java Developers. I advise obtaining the most recent stable version. Depending on the architecture of your system, choose Download. Eclipse Mars is what I’m using. You may choose from any of the most current iterations.
2. Once the download is complete, extract the zip file to a suitable location.
3. Double-click eclipse.exe after navigating to the extracted location.

You can close the second precondition for this Selenium WebDriver tutorial by opening Eclipse.

Configuring the WebDriver for Selenium.

Installing the Selenium Standalone Server is the final stage in this Selenium WebDriver tutorial, and the instructions are as follows:

1. Visit the Selenium website to download the Selenium Client and WebDriver Language Bindings. The client libraries for the language of your choice are available for download. In this blog, Java Client Bindings will be used.
2. Extract the file to a folder of your choosing so you can utilize it later after downloading it.
3. The matching extracted file is now visible in your chosen destination folder.
4. The jar files, a libs folder containing additional jar files, and a CHANGELOG file will all be visible when you open the folder.
5. The browser drivers enabling you to instantiate the browser must then be downloaded.
6. After downloading the driver, extract and save it somewhere you can access it.

After completing the preliminary setup, let’s see how to set up Eclipse to use the recently loaded Selenium Libraries.

Setting up Eclipse for Selenium WebDriver

1. Open eclipse.exe, which was saved after the installation process of Eclipse.
2. Click OK after making a manual workspace selection or letting the default location be used.
3. Go to File> New > Java Project to start a new project.
4. After choosing Next, give the project a name. 
5. Click “Finish” on the menu.
6. Choose New > Package from the context menu by right-clicking on it.
7. Click on Finish after entering the package name in the New Java Package dialogue box.
8. At this point, you must build a class inside the package. To do this, select New > Class with a right-click on the package name.
9. Name your class, choose a method stub (public static void main(String[] args)), and click Finish in the New Java Class dialogue box.
10. We need to import the libraries we installed for the Selenium WebDriver tutorial in the previous section to have an outline for our test project.
11. Select Build Path > Configure Build Path from the context menu when right-clicking the project.
12. Select Add External JARs and open the folder containing your downloaded JAR files.
13. Pick the two jars installed in the libs and Selenium Client folders.
14. The jar files will appear under the Libraries once added.
15. Select OK after clicking on Apply. The package explorer now displays the Referenced Libraries filled in.

Now, we have successfully configured Selenium WebDriver in our Eclipse project.

To run your tests, you can leverage a cloud-based testing platform that can easily address this challenge by eliminating the need for developers to manually configure their local environments. 

LambdaTest is an AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform that provides automated testing on over 3000+ real browsers and operating systems. You also need not to set up an in-house Selenium grid to run your tests. With LambdaTest online Selenium grid, you can run tests on a cloud-based scalable and reliable grid.

Conclusion

As we conclude this blog for novices and experts in Selenium, one key component in web automation and software testing is Selenium WebDriver. It is a perfect roadmap, revealing all the essential components of Selenium and illuminating the critical function of WebDriver in helping you go from beginner to expert.

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