There are countless hours spent testing a web app both inside and outside the local development environment. Prior to Selenium, manual testers enacted and reenacted hundreds of test cases on all benchmarked browsers, flagging what broke and seeking to pinpoint the cause of the problem.
An end-to-end system test could take anywhere from a few days to several weeks to complete, depending on how big the manual testing team is.
In today’s development methodologies, it takes two to four weeks to complete a project. It requires near-instant feedback and deterministic, repeatable testing to ship new, bug-free versions in that time frame. Today, Selenium automation testing is integral to software development.
Learn how Selenium automated testing came about, how the tools that enable it were developed, and how its use fits into the fast-paced development pipelines of today.
Selenium automates browsers through an open-source program. In addition to Ruby, Java, NodeJS, PHP, Perl, Python, and C#, it supports a wide range of other programming languages as well. The script is then executed by the browser driver on the device.
Selenium Automation Testing: Who Needs It
The flexibility of Selenium is one of the reasons it is so popular. Selenium can be used by anyone who codes for the web, from freelance developers to UI engineers performing visual regression tests after new integrations.
In an enterprise environment, Selenium testing is typically carried out by QA engineers. Testers must write focused, non-flaky (deterministic) scripts to maximize coverage and accuracy, refactor old test suites for newer versions of the project, and maintain test infrastructure (such as the Hub and the test-case library).
Performing comprehensive tests to detect ‘show-stopper’ bugs and advising stakeholders about updating performance benchmarks would be their responsibility. It is their aim to ensure maximum test coverage and efficacy, thereby boosting engineers’ productivity.
Why Selenium WebDriver Should Be Your First Choice In Automation Testing?
We now know what Selenium WebDriver is and how it differs from the other versions of the Selenium framework. Here are some benefits of automated testing with Selenium WebDriver.
1. It’s Open-Source
Automation testing with Selenium WebDriver has a number of benefits, including the fact that it is open source. All of the features of QTP, as well as more, are provided free of charge. You can download it directly from the official website and as a community-based tool, you can get support as well.
2. Availability Of Multiple Languages
For automated testing, Multilingual support is one of the major benefits of Selenium WebDriver. WebDriver supports all of the programming languages that testers should be familiar with including Python, PHP, Java, C#, Ruby, JavaScript, etc. Although it offers bindings for every major programming language, it also has its own script language. Giving web developers the flexibility to work on any programming language they are comfortable with.
3. Compatible With Multiple Operating Systems
Selenium WebDriver for automation testing supports multiple operating systems like Linux, UNIX, Mac as well as Windows, one of the major benefits over previous versions. Their solution suite makes it possible to create a customized testing suite that can be used across any platform. The WebDriver technology enables you to create a test case on Windows and run it on Mac.
4. Testing For Cross-Browser Compatibility
Automation testing with Selenium WebDriver has expanded its support for cross-browser testing compared to previous versions. Among the many browsers, it supports Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer, Edge, Yandex, and many others. Using WebDriver, you can use an automated test method when you are performing cross-browser testing on a website.
5. Multi-Framework And Multi-Language Support
WebDriver can be integrated with various frameworks to compile the source code, including Maven and ANT. Selenium WebDriver can also be integrated with testing frameworks such as TestNG to ease automation testing. Moreover, it can interact with Jenkins for automated build and deployment through Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery.
6. Testing Cross-Platform
A major advantage of automation testing with Selenium WebDriver is the ability to test on multiple devices. Using automated test cases, it is now possible to test on iPhones, Blackberry, and Android devices so that cross-device issues can be addressed.
7. Supporting The Community
Support for Selenium is mainly community-based, which makes it possible to maintain regular updates and upgrades. All updates can be downloaded whenever they are required and don’t require any particular training. As a result, Selenium WebDriver is both budget-friendly as well as resourceful.
8. Implementation Is Simple
Its ease of use is one of Selenium WebDriver’s widely acclaimed advantages for automating testing. Because the tool is open source, it enables users to script their personalized extensions, which allows them to develop customized actions that can be manipulated as they attain higher levels of proficiency.
9. Extensions And Reusability
In scripts written with Selenium WebDriver, browser compatibility testing is supported. A tester is thus able to run multiple scenarios. Since WebDriver covers all aspects of functionality testing, an endless number of scenarios can be run. By customizing the add-ons, automation testers can widen the scope of testing an application and reap the rewards of automating tests with Selenium WebDriver.
10. Simulation Of The Mouse Cursor And Keyboard
Among its important features is WebDriver’s ability to simulate a real-world user scenario by handling mouse and keyboard events. Advanced User Interactions is the API that contains the action classes for when those events need to be executed. As well as simple events such as clicking a mouse button or pressing a key, you can automate complex ones such as drag and drop, clicking and holding, selecting multiple items, etc.
11. Taking Advantage Of The Code
Selenium WebDriver automation testing also provides the advantage of speeding up the testing cycles by leveraging the development code, which is another major benefit. Developers can use the testing language in Selenium WebDriver automation testing. Instead of interacting with another page to verify the date field which is updated in the database, a tester can pull the data model used by the application by pulling it without having to worry about automating data flow.
12. Starting The Server Is Not Necessary
Automation testing with Selenium WebDriver has the significant benefit that no server needs to be started prior to running the test. It interprets commands written in the code directly into Webservices that the remote driver receives via HTTP requests, which can then be executed into the browser and deliver a response.
13. Browser Interactions With Advanced Features
You can also simulate advanced user interactions with WebDriver, such as clicking the back and forward buttons in a browser. These kinds of automated tests cannot be generated by open-source tools. Testing fintech applications involving online money transfers or banking applications that do not store any cookies or cache is made much easier by this method.
The best way to initiate Selenium automation testing is by using a cloud-based test execution platforms like LambdaTest. A robust, scalable, reliable, and high-performing test execution across 3,000+ real mobile and desktop browsers that enables development and testing teams to shorten release cycles. You can test in parallel and reduce test execution time by more than tenfold. LambdaTest offers a secure cloud-based Selenium Grid that enable testers to perform testing in a secure and scalable testing infrastructure.
You can view detailed Selenium test logs to aid with on-the-fly debugging. Examine exception logs, command logs, network logs, raw Selenium logs, and an entire video log containing end-to-end test execution.
Conclusion
The main purpose of product testing is to determine if your web applications are stable in the public environment. Automating your test scripts can help you avoid outages by ensuring that your website is tested on all of the latest and legacy browsers. Using a Selenium grid is a great way to do this.
Selenium Grid automates the execution of test scripts on all browsers. In addition to automating the repetitive test cases, we can also execute them in parallel by using it. Trimming down the total time you spend on your test cycles is the ultimate goal. In the event that things go awry, make sure you have the option of reverting to the previous release of your web application. Have a great test!
