Selenium Tips & Tricks, presented at the Tel Aviv Selenium Meetup on March 26, 2015.

1. How To Use Selenium,
Successfully
by Dave Haeffner, @TourDeDave

2. http://www.wpclipart.com/geography/features/chasm.png.html

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimal_solutions_for_Rubik's_Cube

4. Write business valuable tests that are
reusable, maintainable and resilient
across all relevant browsers.
Then package and scale them for
you & your team.

5. Selenium Overview
• What it is — the Reader’s Digest version
• What it is and is not good at
• IDE vs. Local vs. Remote
• Slow, brittle, and hard to maintain?

6. Step 1
Define a Test Strategy

7. Test Strategy
1. How does your business make money?
2. What features of your application are being used?
3. What browsers are your users using?
4. What things have broken in the app before?
Outcome: What to test and which
browsers to care about

8. Step 2
Pick a Programming
Language

9. Programming Language
• Same language as the app?
• Who will own it?
• Build a framework or use an existing one?
• http://bit.ly/seleniumframeworks

10. Step 3
Use Selenium
fundamentals

11. Selenium Fundamentals
• Mimics human action
• Uses a few common actions
• Works with “locators”
Locators tell Selenium which HTML
element to interact with

12. Common Actions
• get();
• findElement();
• click(); //or submit();
• sendKeys();
• isDisplayed();

13. Locator Strategies
• Class
• CSS selectors
• ID
• Link Text
• Partial Link Text
• Tag Name
• XPath
Good locators are:
• unique
• descriptive
• unlikely to change
That rules a few of these out

14. Locator Strategies
• Class
• CSS selectors
• ID
• Link Text
• Partial Link Text
• Tag Name
• XPath
Good locators are:
• unique
• descriptive
• unlikely to change
That rules a few of these out

15. Locator Strategies
• Class
• CSS selectors
• ID
• Link Text
• Partial Link Text
• Tag Name
• XPath
Good locators are:
• unique
• descriptive
• unlikely to change
That rules a few of these out
Start with IDs and Classes

16. Locator Strategies
• Class
• CSS selectors
• ID
• Link Text
• Partial Link Text
• Tag Name
• XPath
Good locators are:
• unique
• descriptive
• unlikely to change
That rules a few of these out
Start with IDs and Classes
Use CSS or XPath (with care)

17. Locator Strategies
• Class
• CSS selectors
• ID
• Link Text
• Partial Link Text
• Tag Name
• XPath
CSS vs XPath
http://bit.ly/seleniumbenchmarks
http://bit.ly/cssxpathexamples

18. Finding Quality Locators
• Inspect the page
• Verify your selection
• e.g., FirePath or FireFinder
• http://bit.ly/verifyinglocators
• Learn through gaming
• http://bit.ly/locatorgame
• Conversation

20. Step 4
Write your first test

21. Good Test Anatomy
• Write for BDD or xUnit test framework
• Test one thing (atomic)
• Each test can be run independently (autonomous)
• Anyone can understand what it is doing
• Group similar tests together

22. A Login Example
1. Visit the login form
2. Find the login form’s username field and input text
3. Find the login form’s password field and input text
4. Find the submit button and click it
1. or, find the form and submit it

23. http://the-internet.herokuapp.com/login

26. Now to find an assertion
1. Login
2. Inspect the page
3. Find a locator
4. Verify it
5. Add it to the test

29. Exception Handling
• org.openqa.selenium.NoSuchElementException:
Unable to locate element: {"method":"css
selector","selector":".flash.error"}
• Most common ones you’ll run into:
NoSuchElement and
StaleElementReferenceError
• A list of all WebDriver exceptions:
http://bit.ly/se-exceptions-java

30. Exception Handling cont’d
http://bit.ly/se-exceptions-howto

31. Step 5
Write reusable and
maintainable test code

32. Page Objects

33. Application Under Test
Test 1 Test 2 Test 3 Test 4 Test 5Test 1 Test 2 Test 3 Test 4 Test 5
Need to update EVERY test :-(

34. Application Under Test
Page Object(s)
Test 1 Test 2 Test 3 Test 4 Test 5
Need to update JUST the page object :-D

35. Let’s look at a page
object for login

37. And here’s what the test
looks like when using it

38. Page object helpers:
http://bit.ly/po-html-elements
http://bit.ly/po-page-factory

39. Base Page Object

40. Selenium
Commands
Page
Object 1
Page
Object 2
Page
Object 3
Page
Object 4
Page
Object 5

41. Base Page
Object
Page
Object 1
Page
Object 2
Page
Object 3
Page
Object 4
Page
Object 5
Selenium
Commands
• Global reuse
• More readable
• Insulates you from
Selenium API changes
http://bit.ly/se-upgrade

42. Let’s take a look at a
Base Page Object

44. And here it is
implemented

46. How everything fits together
Test TestTest
Page
Object
Page
Object
Base
Page
Object
Tests use page objects
Page objects inherits the
base page object
The base page object wraps
your Selenium commands

47. Step 6
Make your tests resilient

48. Waiting

49. Thread.sleep();
Implicit wait
Explicit waits

50. Thread.sleep();
Implicit wait
Explicit waits

51. Thread.sleep();
Implicit wait
Explicit waits
http://bit.ly/se-waiting

52. Explicit Waits
• Specify an amount of time, and an action
• Selenium will try repeatedly until either:
• The action is completed, or
• The amount of time specified has been reached
(and throw a timeout exception)

54. In the Base page object

55. In the DynamicLoading page object

56. Browser Timing
Considerations

57. Step 7
Prep for use

58. Test Harness
• Simple organizational structure
• Central setup and teardown
• Configurable at run-time (with sensible defaults)
• Reporting & Logging
• Parallelization
• Test Grouping

59. Folder structure

60. Central setup/teardown
More on JUnit Rules:
http://bit.ly/junit-rules

61. Simple config with defaults

62. Reporting & Logging
• Machine readable
e.g., JUnit XML
• Human readable
e.g., screenshots, failure message, stack trace
Fantastic Test Report Tool
http://bit.ly/se-reporter (Allure Framework)

63. Parallelization
• In code
• Through your test runner
• Through your Continuous Integration (CI) server
#protip Enforce random order execution of tests
http://bit.ly/junit-random-order
Recommended approach:
http://bit.ly/mvn-surefire

64. Test Grouping
• Metadata (a.k.a. Categories)
• Enables “test packs”
• Some category ideas
• wip
• shallow
• deep
• story number
More info:
bit.ly/junit-categories

65. Step 8
Add in cross-browser
execution

66. Locally
http://bit.ly/se-chromedriver
http://bit.ly/se-firefoxdriver
http://bit.ly/se-iedriver
http://bit.ly/se-operadriver (12.16)
http://bit.ly/se-safaridriver

67. Chrome

68. Grid
Grid Hub
Browser
Tests
All done with the Selenium Standalone Server
Just requires additional runtime flags
Grid
Node
Grid
Node
Grid
Node
Browser
Browser

69. Grid
Hub
Node(s)

70. Grid
More on Selenium Grid
http://bit.ly/se-grid-docs
http://bit.ly/se-grid-post
http://bit.ly/se-grid-extras
http://bit.ly/se-grid-scaler

71. Sauce Labs
Sauce Labs Browser
Tests

72. Sauce Labs
Additional Considerations
- Test name
- Pass/Fail status
- Secure tunnel
More on Sauce:
http://bit.ly/sauce-platforms
http://bit.ly/sauce-post
http://bit.ly/sauce-tutorial-java

74. Step 9
Build an automated
feedback loop

75. Feedback loops
• The goal: Find failures early and often
• Done with continuous integration and notifications
• Notifications
e.g., remote: Email, chat, SMS
in-person: audio/visual, public shaming

76. Code
Committed
Unit/Integ.
(pass?)
Deploy to
autom. test
server
(success?)
Run
automated
tests
(pass?)
Deploy to
next env.
yes
yes
yes
Notify team if no
Code Promotion
Bonus points: stop the line

77. Simple CI configuration
1. Create a Job
2. Pull In Your Test Code
3. Set up Build Triggers
4. Configure Build steps
5. Configure Test Reports
6. Set up Notifications
7. Run Tests & View The Results
8. High-five your neighbor

79. Step 10
Find information on
your own
http://bit.ly/se-info-slides
http://bit.ly/se-info-video

80. Steps to solve the puzzle
1. Define a Test Strategy
2. Pick a programming language
3. Use Selenium Fundamentals
4. Write Your First Test
5. Write re-usable and maintainable
test code
6. Make your tests resilient
7. Package your tests into a framework
8. Add in cross-browser execution
9. Build an automated feedback loop
10. Find information on your own

81. Write business valuable tests that are
reusable, maintainable and resilient
across all relevant browsers.
Then package them and scale them
for you & your team.

82. –Dave Haeffner
“You may think your puzzle is unique. But really, everyone is
trying to solve the same puzzle. Yours is just configured
differently — and it’s solvable”

83. https://seleniumguidebook.com/

84. Selenium
Tips & Tricks
by Dave Haeffner
@TourDeDave

85. http://ElementalSelenium.com

86. etc.

87. Headless w/ Xvfb
Tip 38

91. Headless w/ GhostDriver
Tip 38

93. 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

95. HTTP Status Codes
Tip 17

96. 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

97. Selenium Browser
Proxy
Server
Application
Under
Test

101. Blacklisting
Tip 66

102. 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) and
blacklist them (e.g., make it so they don’t load)

105. Load Testing
Tip 68

106. 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)

109. Code adapted from ruby-jmeter example from flood.io

112. Broken Image Checking
Tip 67

113. Option 1 - Proxy Server
Option 2 - HTTP Library
Option 3 - JavaScript

114. Option 1: Proxy Server

116. Option 2: HTTP Library

118. Option 3: JavaScript

120. Forgot Password
Tip 43

121. Configuration
• Use Selenium to trigger the forgot password
workflow (which sends an e-mail to a Gmail
account) and keep the session active
• Retrieve the e-mail and it’s contents (e.g., a URL)
through the Gmail API
• Launch the URL from the e-mail using the Selenium
session

124. A/B Testing
Tip 12

127. Example Explanation
• There are 3 states available in the example on the-
internet. Each state has different header text.
• The control has the text ‘A/B Test Control’
• The variation has the text ‘A/B Test Variation 1’
• Outside of the split test, the text says ‘No A/B Test’

128. Configuration
• You can easily opt-out of A/B tests by forging a
cookie or 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

131. Downloading a File
Tips 2, 8, & 15

132. 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.
A HEAD request with an HTTP library is an order of
magnitude faster than downloading with Selenium since
you’re just checking the headers. And, it can be used in
tandem with Selenium.

133. With Selenium

135. With an HTTP library

136. With an HTTP library (for secure files)

138. Highlight Elements
Tip 65

143. Growl Notifications
Tip 55

147. See the video at http://bit.ly/se-growl-video

148. Visual Testing

149. Some Write-ups
http://bit.ly/se-visual-1 Getting Started
http://bit.ly/se-visual-2 False Positives part 1
http://bit.ly/se-visual-3 False Positives part 2
http://bit.ly/se-visual-4 Add Visual Testing To Your Existing Tests
http://bit.ly/se-visual-5 Add Visual Testing To Your BDD Tests

150. A Robot On Every Desk ™

151. Tapsterbot
http://bit.ly/tapster-build
http://bitly.com/tapster-buy
Build Your Own
Buy One Fully Assembled

152. Get in touch
@TourDeDave
dhaeffner@gmail.com
DaveHaeffner.com