This document provides an overview of Selenium, an open source tool for automating web browsers across platforms and browsers. It discusses how Selenium automates all major desktop and mobile browsers using a single script. Selenium includes Selenium WebDriver for controlling browsers programmatically via a REST API, Selenium Grid for distributed parallel testing on different environments, and Selenium IDE, a Firefox add-on for recording and playing back tests without coding. The document traces the history and evolution of Selenium from 2004 to the present and outlines some future directions beyond automated testing capabilities.

1. AN OVERVIEW
OF
SELENIUM
Adam Carmi (@carmiadam)
Co-Founder and VP R&D at Applitools

2. SELENIUM AUTOMATES
BROWSERS

3. SELENIUM AUTOMATES
BROWSERS
ALL MAJOR BROWSERS
ON ALL MAJOR (DESKTOP) OPERATING SYSTEMS

4. … AND MOBILE*
WEB, NATIVE, AND HYBRID APPLICATIONS
* Via appium, Selendroid, ios-driver and WP driver.

5. ONE
SCRIPT
TO
RULE
THEM
ALL

6. No Proprietary IDE / Language

7. OPEN SOURCE
https://code.google.com/p/selenium/source/browse
APACHE LICENSE 2.0

8. Why “Selenium”?

9. Selenium Rules!

10. Selenium 2
(Since 2011)
Selenium
WebDriver
Selenium
Grid
Selenium
IDE
Browser
Automation API
Local + Remote
Centrally managed
parallel execution in
diverse environments
A FF record-playback
tool mostly used for
fast prototyping

11. Selenium WebDriver

12. HOW DOES IT WORK?
webdriver.xpi
XPCOM
IEDriverServer.exe
COM

13. WHAT’S WIRE?
A RESTFul web service using JSON over HTTP.
A proposed W3C standard for automating web-browsers.
https://code.google.com/p/selenium/wiki/JsonWireProtocol

14. Selenium Grid

15. WHY GRID?
Scale by distributing tests (parallel
execution)
Run tests against a vast combination of
browsers / OS.

16. HOW
DOES
IT
WORK?

17. GRID AS A SERVICE…

18. Selenium IDE

19. SELENIUM IDE
A Firefox Add-on for recording, editing and running tests.
Over 10M downloads to date!
PROS:
CONS:
•
•
•
•
•
•
• Based on SeleniumCore
• No code reuse
• No iterations and conditional
statements
• No exception handling
• No error recovery
No programming skills required
Easy record and playback
Step by step debugger
Play tests on any browser
Export tests as WebDriver tests
Extensible

20. EPILOG

21. PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE…
2004
2006
2009
2010
2011
Jason
Huggins
writes
Selenium
Core
Selenium IDE
Selenium RC
iPhoneDriver
AndroidDriver
[Selenium 2]
WebDriver
Grid
2013
2014
iPhoneDriver [Selenium 3]
AndroidDriver S1 deprecated.
deprecated. SeleniumBuilder
W3C Working Mobile Wire
Draft
WebDriver

22. BEYOND SELENIUM…
• UI layout and appearance validation
• Flash, Custom canvas drawing, and other non HTML
technologies
• Test execution scheduling
• Test execution reports and statistics

23. Thank You!
Adam Carmi (@carmiadam)
Co-Founder and VP R&D at Applitools