Selenium Webdriver is an open source tool for automating browser-based applications. WebDriver is the interface for Selenium against which tests are written in multiple languages. This tutorial uses the Java programming language with Junit and Maven.
Sometimes test authors find the API daunting and their initial automation code brittle and poorly structured. In this introduction, Alan Richardson provides hints and tips gained from his years of experience both using WebDriver and helping others improve their use of the tool.
Alan starts at the beginning, helping with installation and getting started, and explaining the basic WebDriver API capabilities: simple interrogation and navigation, and then moves on to synchronization strategies and working with AJAX applications. He covers tools and location strategies to find elements on web pages using CSS and XPath.
Alan also provides an introduction to abstraction approaches which help you build robust, reliable, and maintainable automation suites.
The course uses a 'show & tell' followed by 'exercises and support' approach. First Alan describes and demonstrates the principles with code examples, sometimes with live coding examples. Then follows an exercise session where tutorial participants complete exercises that build on the material presented.
The exercises are designed to support both novice programmers and those with more experience.
Hands-on exercises require a laptop computer with Firefox, Firebug, and Firepath installed. You will write code. Coding exercises require an IDE (IntelliJ), Java SDK, and Maven.
The one day course is designed to help you get started and provide an overview of the capabilities of WebDriver, and provide enough for self-motivated participants to research the next steps and practice on their own.
The above sections are supported with exercises.
We also provide an information overview of:
The two day version uses day two to expand the information overview (alerts, cookies, browsers, etc.) into hands on demos and exercise sections.
With more exercises, the two day version really helps embed the practical use of WebDriver in readiness for working on production applications.
With the addition of the third day, we use a workshop format to use the techniques in the real world.
Applying the knowledge learned from working with the test and practice pages used in the tutorial exercises we apply the techniques to client production applications.
Using the actual websites and applications that participants will work on, they create code to automate the applications and start to refactor that code into abstraction layers.
This is a hands on practical day with demonstrations, pairing, group work and question & answer sessions throughout the day.
Alan Richardson has more than twenty years of professional IT experience, working as a programmer and at every level of the testing hierarchy: from tester through head of testing. Author of the books 'Selenium Simplified' and 'Java For Testers', Alan also has created online training courses to help people learn technical web testing and Selenium WebDriver with Java. He works as an independent consultant, helping companies improve their automated execution, agile, and exploratory technical testing.