Testing Toolkit: Selenium Test Automation

Testing Toolkit:

Automating With Selenium

Looking to get started with Selenium?

This toolkit will give you a good understanding of how it works. And a few ways in which CrossBrowserTesting can help beyond that.

What's Selenium | Language Bindings | Webinar Resources | Content Resources | FAQ

What is Selenium?

It's an open source framework for automated testing of web applications. But It's more than just a free testing tool.

Selenium can do nearly anything a real user can, only faster. Which is what makes it great for testing.

No coding? No problem. CrossBrowerTesting can create tests faster than ever with Record & Replay.

We take the hassle out of
setting up a Selenium grid

Legacy Selenium Grid

The traditional way to run automated tests with virtual machines. While useful, it still requires significant maintenance as your coverage expands.

Selenium with CrossBrowserTesting

Swap out your Selenium Grid with CrossBrowserTesting. It seamlessly expands your test coverage and maintenance while we do the heavy lifting.

Prefer a language?

Then take your pick. Selenium works with all of them. If just getting started, we recommend Python, as it reads like English and is easier to understand. Read more on that here.

Let us help you write your first Selenium script

Start with the right foundation. Since Selenium takes time to learn, CrossBrowserTesting gives you the building blocks to get started with its Capabilities Configurator.

Create Automated Tests Faster Than Ever with Codeless Record and Replay

Looking for an easy way to automate repetitive manual tasks?

Record & Replay Offers:

Easily record your test scenario and replay it back against different browsers
Once your tests are recorded, run them in parallel against hundreds of browsers a once with Suites
Easily change out steps in your test to keep your testing scalable

Learn More

Webinar Resources

This is only the tip of the iceberg. The following webinars will give you a good overall understanding of what Selenum can do, and maybe even address some specific issues.

SELENIUM ACADEMY

Selenium 101

THOUGHT LEADERS

Hands on UI Testing (Automation Panda)

SELENIUM ACADEMY

Selenium 201

SELENIUM ACADEMY

Headless Testing

THOUGHT LEADERS

Achieving Quality Without a Dedicated Test Team (Yesware)

Content Resources

Beyond video, we've got other ways to access the information you may be looking for. These cover topics that may come up as you dive deeper into Selenium.

Blog Post

eBook

Help Post

Reports

All

BLOG POST Testing React Apps with Selenium REPORT Magic Quadrant for Software Test Automation HELP POST What Is Parallel Testing? BLOG POST Selenium Academy 101 FAQ BLOG POST Selenium 101: How To Automate Your Login Process BLOG POST Getting Started With CrossBrowserTesting’s API BLOG POST Selenium 101: Navigating Waits and Sleeps EBOOK How & When: Going from Manual to Automated Testing HELP POST Best Practices of Selenium Testing HELP POST Exhaustive List of Selenium Commands BLOG POST Selenium 101: Running Your Test Against Two Browsers at Once BLOG POST Quick Tips To Improve Your Selenium Testing With Python BLOG POST Quick Tips To Improve Your Selenium Testing With Python BLOG POST Are These 5 Gaps Missing From Your UI Test Automation Strategy? HELP POST Recording and Running Selenium Tests With Selenium Builder HELP POST Uploading Files Via Selenium BLOG POST Selenium 101: How To Take Screenshot During Automated Tests HELP POST Running Selenium with Cookies turned off BLOG POST Maximum Concurrency with Nightwatch.js BLOG POST Selenium 101: Automating User Actions BLOG POST Selenium vs. Cypress: Is WebDriver on Its Way Out? BLOG POST Selenium 101: Generating Test Reports BLOG POST What’s the Best Programming Language to Learn First? It Depends HELP POST CSS Selectors To XPath Cheatsheet

Automated Testing: FAQ

What is the difference between a Selenium grid and CrossBrowserTesting?

While you can make your own Selenium grid with a costly device lab or VMs, many have found moving their Selenium grid to a third-party cloud like CrossBrowserTesting is faster and more productive, allowing more tests to run on more machines in less time. With over 2050 browsers to choose from, the possibilities of parallel test execution with CrossBrowserTesting are almost limitless. Our browser, device, and operating system selection includes all the latest configurations as well as legacy browsers so you can test what your users are on without worrying about any of the associated costs or upkeep. There are certain real costs of building an in-house environment as well as countless other secondary costs of not going with a cloud provider, like CrossBrowserTesting.

Selenium is open source right, why would we need to buy CrossBrowserTesting?

We can give you 8 good reasons!

We make it easier to get started.
Just install Selenium bindings for your programming language of choice and be done!
Eliminate the work of managing and maintaining Selenium Servers, WebDrivers, and Browsers
Screenshots, videos, and even network data can be captured during a Selenium test and shared with anyone
Higher concurrency means faster execution
Run dozens of tests at once without having to run dozens of RAM-hungry browsers
Spend less time waiting and more time doing what matters
Instant access to thousands of browsers and devices, including mobiles

What languages are supported with Selenium?

C#, Java, JavaScript, PHP, Python and Ruby

Which language is the easiest to get started with?

When talking with users about what language is easiest to get started with, we always recommend Python. The reason we recommend it for beginners is because it reads like English and tends to be easier for users to understand when getting started. Take a look at our blog on the Best Programming Language to Learn First.

What’s the best way to set up tests to run within a build pipeline using Jenkins?

There are only two things you need to be able to run your selenium tests from a Jenkins pipeline. You need a shell script or batch file that Jenkins can call to start your test, and Jenkins needs access to any libraries or modules that you use during the test – including the Selenium language bindings. If you are using Python, you can use VirtualEnv to create a virtual environment for Python with Selenium already installed. If you are using Java, make sure to include Selenium in your pom.xml file and run mvn build.

Does Selenium have the ability to open two webpages at the same time?

Yes, Selenium can be used to easily manage multiple pages at the same time. You can use the built-in command “switch_to_window()” documented here: Learn More Here

Quite the opposite. Using Xpath to find elements, especially absolute Xpaths, tends to lead to very brittle tests. Any small change in the hierarchy around the element you are locating could cause the wrong element to be selected. Those bugs in your Script can sometimes be hard to debug. You should save yourself the trouble and use element IDs as much as possible

So, find_element_by_id is the best function?

Yes, it’s the most resilient to change and the easiest to use. If you can, add human-understandable IDs to any elements of your page that you want to automate.

For AngularJS based applications, do you have any specific built in functionality?

CrossBrowserTesting does not provide specific functionality to test websites built with AngularJS, but CrossBrowserTesting does work with Protractor – a Selenium-based framework created by Google for testing AngularJS. We have a short guide on getting started here: Help Doc for Protractor

How well does protractor work with just regular Angular?

It works great! That’s what it’s made for. If you run into any problems, feel free to reach out to our support team and they’ll help get you up and running.

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Testing Toolkit:

Automating With Selenium

What is Selenium?

Prefer a language?

NodeJS

Ruby

Python Docs

Java

C#

PHP

Let us help you write your first Selenium script

Create Automated Tests Faster Than Ever with Codeless Record and Replay

Webinar Resources

Content Resources

Automated Testing: FAQ