Browsers supported for different Selenium flavours

Browser	Selenium IDE	Selenium Remote Control	Selenium Core
Firefox 3	Record and playback tests	Start browser, run tests	Run tests
Firefox 2	Record and playback tests	Start browser, run tests	Run tests
IE 7	not supported	Start browser, run tests	Run tests
Safari 3	not supported	Start browser, run tests	Run tests
Safari 2	not supported	Start browser, run tests	Run tests
Opera 9	not supported	Start browser, run tests	Run tests
Opera 8	not supported	Start browser, run tests	Run tests
Others	not supported	Partial support possible	Run tests

Why Selenium Server acts as Proxy for Selenium RC?

The motivation here is to conform to JavaScript's same-domain rule i.e., Same Origin Policy for JavaScript. We want the browser to be able to talk to both the web site being tested, and also to the selenium server itself. This presents a problem, since they will not normally be from the same domain. The solution is to have all communication go through the selenium server running as a proxy, where communication from the browser-side selenium test management harness is intercepted and swallowed up by the selenium server, and other queries are forwarded out to the web site being tested.

Commands that can be applied on HTML Elements in a page

Hi All,

Below are the commands that can be applied on HTML elements in a page.

	Element	Commands can be Applied
	TextBox	getValue(), getText(), isEditable(), isVisible(), type()
	List Box	getSelectedId(),getSelectedIndex(), getSelectedLabel(),getSelectedValue(), getSelectOptions(), select()
	Multi Select Element	getSelectedIds(),getSelectedIndexes(),getSelectedLabels(),getSelectedValues(),isSomethingSelected()
	Radio Button	check(), click(), isChecked()
	Check Box	Check(), click(),isChecked(), uncheck()
	Button	click(), clickAndWait()
	Link	click(), getAllLinks()
	Text	getText(),getBodyText()
	Tables and Cells	getTable()

Selenium RC, The basic

Selenium RC, The basic
Selenium RC consists of three main components, see below,

The HTTP proxy server, this component, once Selenium RC server started, it will ready to receive command from client.
The command interpreter, interpret command (HTTP GET/POST requests) and send to Selenium CORE.
The Selenium CORE
Installation
Following are topic about installation and prerequisite about Selenium RC.

Java Runtime (JRE)
You need to have Java Runtime because Selenium RC Server s written in Java. You can check you Java by open command line and type,

java -version

If you have Java installed on your machine, you will see,

java version "1.5.0_06"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.5.0_06-b05) Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.5.0_06-b05, mixed mode, sharing)

If not, you have to download and install java. See details

Install Web Browser, If you don't have them
Before you go any further, please make sure that you have web browser you are going to use to test, for example, you will need to have Internet explorer and Mozilla Firefox installed on your machine in order to be able to test against them.

Getting Selenium up
Once have Java, web browser, next you are going to get Selenium RC. Step by step to get Selenium RC up and running,

Download Selenium RC you can save it wherever you want, for me, I saved it at D:Selenium
Extraction the zip, you will see following;
selenium-dotnet-client-driver-1.0-beta-1, .Net client driver

selenium-java-client-driver-1.0-beta-1, Java client driver

selenium-perl-client-driver-1.0-beta-1, Perl client driver

selenium-php-client-driver-1.0-beta-1, PHP client driver

selenium-python-client-driver-1.0-beta-1, Pytohn client driver

selenium-ruby-client-driver-1.0-beta-1, Ruby client driver

selenium-server-1.0-beta-1, Selenium RC server

Open command prompt and change directory to the path of Selenium RC server, For example if you save zip file uder D:\Selenuim, you path would be;
D:seleiumselenium-remote-control-1.0-beta-1selenium-server-1.0-beta-1

Under this path, you will see selenium-server.jar, this is our Selenium RC server.

Under the path, type java -jar selenium-server.jar. This will start Selenium RC server. You should see following at command line,
02:56:50.729 INFO - Java: Sun Microsystems Inc. 1.5.0_06-b05

02:56:50.729 INFO - OS: Windows XP 5.1 x86

02:56:50.729 INFO - v1.0-beta-1 [2201], with Core v1.0-beta-1 [1994]

02:56:50.807 INFO - Version Jetty/5.1.x

02:56:50.807 INFO - Started HttpContext[/,/]

02:56:50.807 INFO - Started HttpContext[/selenium-server,/selenium-server]


02:56:50.807 INFO - Started HttpContext[/selenium-server/driver,/selenium-server/driver]

02:56:50.823 INFO - Started SocketListener on 0.0.0.0:4444

02:56:50.823 INFO - Started org.mortbay.jetty.Server@2e7263

At this point, you have Selenium RC server up and running

Selenium RC, Interactive mode
If you want to write client driver at this point, you can start Selenium RC server with interactive mode. After server started, you can type command line by line and see how it work. To start server in interactive mode, type,

java -jar selenium-server.jar -interactive

Output should be,

03:08:03.495 INFO - Java: Sun Microsystems Inc. 1.5.0_06-b05

03:08:03.495 INFO - OS: Windows XP 5.1 x86

03:08:03.495 INFO - v1.0-beta-1 [2201], with Core v1.0-beta-1 [1994]

03:08:03.589 INFO - Version Jetty/5.1.x

03:08:03.589 INFO - Started HttpContext[/,/]

03:08:03.589 INFO - Started HttpContext[/selenium-server,/selenium-server]

03:08:03.589 INFO - Started HttpContext[/selenium-server/driver,/selenium-server/driver]

03:08:03.589 INFO - Started SocketListener on 0.0.0.0:4444

03:08:03.589 INFO - Started org.mortbay.jetty.Server@2e7263

Entering interactive mode... type Selenium commands here (e.g: cmd=open&1=http://www.yahoo.com)

You can try following command and observer the result,

cmd=getNewBrowserSession&1=*iexplore&2=http://www.google.com

You will see internet explorer pop up with Selenium RC page itself and lower frame. The lower frame will show the page under test. At the command line, you will see something like,

cmd=getNewBrowserSession&1=*iexplore&2=http://www.google.com

03:16:29.370 INFO - ---> Requesting

http://localhost:4444/selenium-server/driver?cmd=getNewBrowserSession&1=*iexplore&2= http://www.google.com


03:16:29.370 INFO - Command request: getNewBrowserSession[*iexplore, http://www.google.com] on session null

03:16:29.370 INFO - creating new remote session

03:16:29.370 INFO - Allocated session 3ef951a2ba6a481888cd3f8012b65194 for http://www.google.com, launching...

03:16:29.370 INFO - Modifying registry settings...

03:16:29.964 INFO - Launching Internet Explorer...

03:16:31.792 INFO - Got result: OK,3ef951a2ba6a481888cd3f8012b65194 on session 3ef951a2ba6a481888cd3f8012b65194


The last line tell you that command successfully execute with current test session (current session? yes, Selenium RC support multiple test session). Keep this in your current command line screen, you will need it to execute next command.

Let try to execute series of following command;

cmd=open&1=http://www.google.com/webhp&sessionId=3ef951a2ba6a481888cd3f8012b65194

cmd=type&1=q&2=helloworld&sessionId=3ef951a2ba6a481888cd3f8012b65194

cmd=click&1=btnG&sessionId=3ef951a2ba6a481888cd3f8012b65194

cmd=getTitle&sessionId=3ef951a2ba6a481888cd3f8012b65194

cmd=testComplete&sessionId=3ef951a2ba6a481888cd3f8012b65194

As you can see, with this command, you can automate internet explorer easily. But in real world, you will face complex testing. For example, will will need to verify correctness of processing of AUT. This will lead you to write programming language instead of typing command line-by-line.

How to Verify the Field MaxLength of an element in a page using Selenium IDE

Hi All,

We can verify the MaxLength of an element in a page with the help of CSS Locator using selenium IDE.

CSS locator syntax:

Identify elements using CSS selectors (e.g. 'css=input[id="text1"]')

For example, verifying an length of an element using id and size of the element.

<tr>

 <td>verifyElementPresent</td>

 <td>css=input[id="username"][size="30"]</td>

 <td></td>

</tr>

Why Selenium scripts fail when run outside the web server for Selenium Core?

Hi All,

As we know selenium scripts will fail when we place our scripts outside the AUT (Application Under Test) web server for Selenium Core, this is due to the reason that Selenium core is built with DHTML / JavaScript. When we are using javaScript we should bound to Same Origin Policy of JavaScript.

What is Same Origin Policy?

Same origin Policy states that javaScript is only allowed to read / Modify the HTML content from the same origin as source i.e, javaScript can able to read / Modify the HTML only when the source and destination of the scripts are from same web server.

For Example:

Suppose a person is working on crutial page and some unsecured webpage simultaneously which are from different sources. If JavaScript is not bound to same Origin Policy, then the other user / Owner of unsecured web page can access / Modify the content of crutial web page. In order to avoid this JavaScript should be bound to Same Origin Policy.

But when we install Selenium IDE, this acts as a trusted FireFox extension and therefore we can violate the Same Origin Policy.

Handling Dropdown elements using Selenium IDE

Hi All,

Here is an example on how to handle Dropdown elements in selenium IDE.

Example:

<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<title>Select From Dropdown</title>
</head>
<body>
<table cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" border="1">
<thead>
<tr><td rowspan="1" colspan="3">Select From Dropdown</td></tr>
</thead><tbody>
<tr>
<td>store</td>
<td>58058</td>
<td>option1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>store</td>
<td>30</td>
<td>index1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>open</td>
<td>http://pages.ebay.com/sitemap.html</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>select</td>
<td>category0</td>
<td>label=Toys &amp; Hobbies</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>storeSelectedLabel</td>
<td>category0</td>
<td>label1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>assertSelectedIndex</td>
<td>category0</td>
<td>${index1}</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>assertSelectedLabel</td>
<td>category0</td>
<td>${label1}</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>select</td>
<td>category0</td>
<td>label=Computers &amp; Networking</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>storeSelectedLabel</td>
<td>category0</td>
<td>label2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>assertSelectedLabel</td>
<td>category0</td>
<td>${label2}</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>assertSelectedValue</td>
<td>category0</td>
<td>${option1}</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
</body>
</html>