Browser-based automation with Step and Selenium

The Selenium framework provides the ability to automate browser actions (browsing, clicking, filling out forms, etc.) and is commonly used for automation testing. You can find more information on the official Selenium website. Examples of Selenium Keywords are available on GitHub.

Preface

In this Selenium tutorial, we will define 3 Keywords:

• OpenChrome, which will be used to create the driver object and the driver wrapper, and pass the driver wrapper to the step’s session
• NavigateTo, which will be used to navigate to an url passed via the input
• CloseChrome, which will be used to explicitly close the driver

The following information provides context for and supplements this tutorial. Please review this information and follow all configurations before beginning step one of the tutorial.

Maven Settings

Using Selenium as a library

Selenium requires several dependencies, as can be seen in the following “pom.xml” file:

  <project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <groupId>my.project.example</groupId>
    <artifactId>selenium-dependencies</artifactId>
    <packaging>jar</packaging>

    <properties>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
        <selenium.version>3.14.0
    </properties>
    <dependencies>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>ch.exense.step</groupId>
        <artifactId>step-api-keyword</artifactId>
        <version>${step-api.version}</version>  
    </dependency>

      <dependency>
          <groupId>org.seleniumhq.selenium</groupId>
          <artifactId>selenium-api</artifactId>
          <version>${selenium.version}</version>
      </dependency>
      <dependency>
          <groupId>org.seleniumhq.selenium</groupId>
          <artifactId>selenium-java</artifactId>
          <version>${selenium.version}</version>
      </dependency>
    </dependencies>

    <build>
      <plugins>
        <plugin>
          <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
          <artifactId>maven-shade-plugin</artifactId>
          <version>3.2.1</version>
          <executions>
            <execution>
              <phase>package
                <goals>
                  <goal>shade</goal>
                </goals>
            </execution>
          </executions>
        </plugin>
      </plugins>
    </build>
</project>
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Webdriver Management

When it comes to WebDriver management, rather than imposing a particular lifecycle management approach onto the developer, instead we let them decide how and when they want to store the driver.

We strongly recommend the following best practices to keep WebDriver management smooth and simple:

• For beginners who are using Selenium or step on their first attempt, we recommend packing the whole scenario, including driver creation and destruction, in a single keyword, and then experimenting with the API until they’ve built a basic test plan that does what they expect
• For more advanced users or load testers who need to have more control over driver creation and destruction and be independent of existing workflows, we encourage you to:
• Create explicit Keywords for the creation and destruction of the driver and implement the rest of the workflow’s logic in separate keywords
• Work in “stateful” mode by introducing a Session object in your test plan, which will guarantee at runtime that the context of each thread/virtual user is maintained and isolated from the others
• This will allow you to add a for loop object and have your users iterate in a certain scenario without destroying the driver (and if you wish, without logging out)
• Attach the driver object to step’s session object, which is managed internally by step and will allow for the “business keywords” to use a properly initialized driver (see example below)
• Wrap the driver in a class which implements Closable to help step clean up in error scenarios (see below as well)
• Lastly, in order to achieve maximum Keyword granularity (and reduce maintenance efforts), especially in environments involving many partially overlapping workflows, we recommend separating each logical step of the workflow in distinct Keywords and passing the driver between keywords

Driver Wrapper Class

Let us take a look at our DriverWrapper class in order to understand how the process gets setup:

  public class DriverWrapper implements Closeable {
   // Our driver object
   final WebDriver driver;
   // Constructor assigning the given driver object to the local one
   public DriverWrapper(WebDriver driver) {
      this.driver = driver;
   }
   // Implementing the Closeable interface requires to override the close() method, this is where we destroy the driver object
   @Override
   public void close() throws IOException {     driver.quit();
   }
}
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Tutorial

1. Set the Type to Java and add the generated jar file as a library:

2. Navigate to the url passed in Input, and check if one of the h1 tags contains the text “Discover”. Here is the code for this:

  @Keyword(name="Selenium_Example")
public void Selenium_Example() {
   // In this example we will use Chrome, so we explicitly set the location of its web driver
   System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "C:\\Tools\\chromedriver.exe");
   // Create a new driver object in order to execute actions
   ChromeDriver chrome = new ChromeDriver();
   // Get the url value from the input
   String homeUrl = input.getString("url");
   // Navigate to the url
   chrome.navigate().to(homeUrl);
   // Look for an h1 tag containing the text "Discover"
   chrome.findElement(By.xpath("//h1[contains(text(),'Discover')]"));
}
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3. Run this code:

  public class SeleniumExample extends AbstractKeyword {
   // Private method in order to get the WebDriver from the DriverWrapper object
   final WebDriver getDriver() {
      return session.get(DriverWrapper.class).driver;
   }
   @Keyword(name="OpenChrome")
   public void OpenChrome() throws Exception {
      // Set explicitly web driver location
      System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "C:\\Tools\\chromedriver.exe");
      // Create the driver object
      final WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();
      // Tell the driver to timeout after 10 seconds
      driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(10, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
      // Put the DriverWrapper object into step's session
      session.put(new DriverWrapper(driver));
   }
   @Keyword(name="NavigateTo")
   public void NavigateTo() throws Exception {
      // Check if the Input contains the url
      if(input.containsKey("url")) {
         // Get the driver from step's session
         final WebDriver driver = getDriver();
         // Navigate to the provided url
         driver.navigate().to(input.get("url").toString());
      } else {
         output.setError("Input parameter 'url' not defined");
      }
   }
   @Keyword(name="CloseChrome")
   public void CloseChrome() throws Exception { // Get the driver from step's session
      final WebDriver driver = getDriver();
      // Close explicitly the driver
      driver.quit();
      }
}
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4. Now deploy and create our Keywords:

• OpenChrome, which will be used to create the driver object and the driver wrapper, and pass the driver wrapper to the step’s session
• NavigateTo, which will be used to navigate to an url passed via the input
• CloseChrome, which will be used to explicitly close the driver

5. Create a test plan using our Keywords:

Summary: This article defines three Keywords (OpenChrome, NavigateTo, and CloseChrome) which will be used in browser-based automation scenarios, using Step and Selenium, as general drivers and navigators.