What is Selenium: Everything You Need to Know About Selenium Automation 

Still, executing test cases manually? Yes? Then you are stuck in the loop of highly resource-intensive and error-prone test cycles. How can you solve this issue? You need to implement automation testing by using various frameworks and tools like Selenium. Don’t know what is Selenium? You don’t need to panic! 

Our article will help you understand everything about Selenium while diving into its components, use cases, and best practices. We will also understand how you can design your testing infrastructure in such a way that you can utilize the full potential of this advanced test automation suite. 

What Is Selenium 

Let’s jump into the primary question of this article, what is Selenium? So, it is an open-source tool that will help you automate your web browsers to initiate the test cases. This tool was originally created as an internal testing solution but has come a long way to become a comprehensive community-driven project. 

Now, you might ask, considering the multiple options available in the market for test automation, why have we chosen Selenium. To justify our choice, let us divert our attention to some of the major features of this test suite: 

• The main reason for choosing Selenium is its open-source infrastructure. This means you do not have to pay huge amounts of subscription fees or other collaterals to access all of its features. Selenium also has a fairly large community of testers who are improving its testing experience and also helping the newcomers. 

• Targeting any specific browser for your audience? Selenium has got you covered! With this test suite, you will have options for multiple browsers to execute your automation test cases. 

• Whether your testing infrastructure is on Windows, Mac, or Linux, Selenium will not restrict you during the test execution process. This also allows the quality assurance teams to verify the functioning of their application on multiple operating systems to provide a more comprehensive experience. 

• Do you have a specific programming language that you prefer? We have a good news for you! While using Selenium, you can write the automation test scripts in multiple programming languages without any restrictions. After this, Selenium will automatically convert this into a native language for the execution process.  

• You can integrate the components of Selenium with multiple frameworks and tools like JUnit, TestNG, and NUnit to improve the test management, reporting, and continuous integration capabilities. This also makes Selenium the perfect option if you’re trying to integrate with DevOps pipelines. 

Tools In The Selenium Test Suite 

One of the common misconceptions that we would like to break is that Selenium isn’t a single independent tool. Instead, it is a test suite that consists of multiple tools which will assist you at different phases of the testing cycle. 

To shed more light over this segment, let us go through some of the primary components of this suite: 

1. The first thing that we would like to mention is the Selenium WebDriver. Why? It is the primary component of the entire test suite as it will not only allocate the test cases but will also execute them in the own environment of your browsers. One of the eye-catching additions of this tool is that it can run all the test cases without any dedicated test engine or compatibility layer. 

2. The Selenium IDE will help you implement codeless automation testing in your infrastructure. How? It will analyze various user interactions on the web application and generate the test cases accordingly. This codeless automation will be the best option for the new testers to get started with basic automation tasks. 

3. The Selenium Grid will be your go to option for integrating parallel testing with your automation testing processes. To implement this step, it uses the principle of a hub that is connected with several nodes. Whenever it receives a test case, it will analyze its parameters and redirect it to the respective element for the implementation process. 

In short, the WebDriver is the best tool for test automation, the Grid will scale test suites, and the IDE will be the perfect supporting role for quick test generation and training. 

Setting up a Selenium Environment 

Excited about implementing Selenium testing? Don’t know how to get started? Follow the steps and the prerequisites that we have given below to get started with Selenium WebDriver in a typical testing environment. 

Prerequisites: 

Before you can actually begin the test implementation process, you must ensure the following prerequisites are present to ensure proper configuring of the overall testing environment: 

1. As per the programming language that you have chosen, you must make sure that the language runtime and the integrated development environment are already set up. 

2. Selenium WebDriver will require specific drivers to automate every targeted web browser. Therefore, depending on your list, you must have separate browsers like ChromeDriver for Google Chrome, GeckoDriver for Firefox, and so on. 

3. Although you can write the code in a simple text editor, we emphasize the usage of an integrated development environment like Eclipse to simplify the project management process and also the debugging stages. 

Executing Selenium Testing 

Now that we have completed all the prerequisites to set up the testing environment, it is time to execute the Selenium test cases. You must note that for the sake of understanding, we will be using the example of Python to create the automation test scripts: 

1. The first step is to install Python from the official Python website, and then you have to install Selenium by opening the terminal window or command prompt and running the given line of code: 

pip install Selenium 

2. For this sample, we will be targeting Google Chrome to run the test cases. You have to install ChromeDriver from the official website. You must be very careful that the ChromeDriver version should match the version of the Google Chrome that you will be using to run the test cases. 

3. Now, you have to create a folder and name it as per your project to place the ChromeDriver inside it. Even if you’re not placing the ChromeDriver directly within this folder, you must ensure that it is accessible through the system PATH whenever this folder is accessed. 

4. Finished the above steps? You are finally ready to create your first automation test script by using Selenium. For the sake of understanding, we will be using the example of the given sample code: 

Using the above code, you will be able to open Google Chrome, navigate to a specified website, and print the title. After this process, it will automatically terminate the session and display the results. 

5. The final step in this process is to execute the test by running the script. If you are using Python like we have used, you have to use the code “python test_script.py”. Now, you simply have to wait and watch the system automatically perform all the steps that you’ve specified in the test code.  

Although we have used a very simple example for the sake of understanding, the basic principle will remain the same. You should also remember that you will have to adjust that code syntax and the dependency libraries depending on your own choice or the requirements of the application that you currently are working on.  

Best Practices For Selenium Testing 

Finally, let us divert our attention to some of the best practices that we suggest you to incorporate in Selenium testing to improve your productivity, scalability, and test efficiency: 

• You must remember that the over usage of implicit waits will unnecessarily slow down the entire test execution process. As an effective solution, you must rely on explicit waits for more targeted element selection and execution. 

• You must pay proper attention towards keeping your test code organized and maintainable. The implementation of the Page Object Model design pattern will be the most important integration to achieve this goal. 

• You should not overly rely on fragile locators like XPath expressions as they can cause brittle test results. Instead, you must work with your developers to create stable locators like Test IDs or data test attributes. 

• It is very important to write smaller, independent test methods which can be used to validate one piece of functionality at a time. This process not only reduces the possibility of test failures but will also help you to pinpoint the possible failures. 

• We also recommend using cloud platforms like LambdaTest for implementing real device testing with your Selenium tests. Now if you are unaware of what is Selenium and what is Selenium WebDriver, there is a high possibility that you don’t know about LambdaTest as well. It is an AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform that lets you perform manual and automation testing at scale with over 10,000+ real devices, 3000+ browsers, and OS combinations. 

• We recommend the testers to integrate continuous deployment and continuous integration pipelines with the Selenium tests so that you can automatically run them on every code commit without the involvement of human testers. 

• It is very important to maintain test reports and detailed logs so that you can simplify the debugging process whenever there is a test failure during the execution process. 

• While creating the automation test scripts for Selenium, you must ensure that they are properly handling alerts, JavaScript popups, and iframes. If you fail to do so, you will witness intermittent failures throughout the execution process. 

• As we already mentioned, you should seriously invest in implementing parallel testing with Selenium Grid. Why? It will help you wrap up thousands of different tests within just a few hours. 

• Although automation testing aims to remove the human involvement in the testing process, you must have some form of manual oversight so that you can ensure that any form of system error or bugs does not completely crash the execution process.  

• Finally, it is very important to realize that browser versions, WebDrivers, and the application in itself will change frequently. Therefore, you must maintain your tests and the environment to ensure that they maintain their reliability throughout this transition.  

The Bottom Line 

Based on all the factors that we have put forward in this article, we can easily say that Selenium has truly earned the reputation as the most effective solution for automated web app testing. Whether you are a new tester or a seasoned veteran in this segment, Selenium will have something for you in terms of application development and testing. 

By using the respective components of the Selenium test suite, you can provide better quality applications more quickly to your end users. Moreover with the expanding scope of the testing market, you must keep yourself updated with all the upcoming trends and innovations so that you’re constantly upscaling your offerings in this competitive market.