What is selenium WebDriver - Introduction, Architecture, Set up, Advantages and Disadvantages

When it comes to web automation testing, there are several frameworks like Selenium, TestNG, Cypress etc., Test automation framework is decided by using parameters like type, complexity, along with the framework expertise available within the team. However, Selenium is the most preferred framework among all the test automation frameworks

For starters, Selenium WebDriver is the core of the Selenium automation framework. In this Selenium WebDriver chapter, I am going into the integral views of Selenium WebDriver as well as we will learn selenium architecture and basic understanding of it.

At the end of this chapter, you will get to learn about basics of selenium and framework of selenium WebDriver

So, let us get started

 

What is Selenium?

Selenium is one of the widely used open-source Web UI (User Interface) automation testing frameworks. It enables Software Engineer’s to execute tests on different browsers, platforms, and computer languages.

During my QA career, I have the fortune to try out and use several test automation frameworks. No any frameworks come close to the Selenium automation framework in terms of framework features, supported languages, CI/CD integrations, easy to understand and more. Nevertheless, Selenium automation testing is still the most preferred mode for realizing web automation testing.

One of the major advantages of Selenium WebDriver over other test automation frameworks, is it supports all popular programming languages like Python, Java, JavaScript, C# etc.

What is WebDriver?

WebDriver is one of the types of the whole Selenium framework that helps in overall browser-based test automation. WebDriver is the remote-control interface component that allows programs to interact and tells browsers, manipulate DOM elements in a web document, and control the behavior of the User Agent. WebDriver’s is language neutral protocols, i.e., protocols that is independent, is leveraged by Selenium framework to automate testing steps. So, in nutshell WebDriver is the connection between the Selenium framework and the end browser over which the test is being executed.

Now a days Selenium and WebDriver are usually spoken together and are even used interchangeably to identify the same framework, Selenium WebDriver. But that has not been the case always. At the starting Selenium and WebDriver were separate open source projects, however in 2008 both teams came together and eliminate inherent issues of then Selenium RC version.

Following is the evolution of the Selenium automation framework:

 

 

Advantages of Selenium automation framework

Now that we have gone through basics about what is selenium, now let’s discuss some major advantages of the Selenium automation framework in this section of the Selenium WebDriver chapter:

• Selenium supports multiple programming languages like Java, Python, C#, JavaScript, Ruby, PHP, etc.
• Selenium is also a platform-independent. So, script written on windows will work on macOS
• Selenium tests can be executed across various browsers (e.g., Firefox, Chrome, IE, Safari, etc.) and different operating systems (e.g., Windows 10, macOS, etc.).
• Parallel testing using the Selenium helps achieve improved browser and test coverage. This eventually helps in reducing the time of execution.
• Selenium and Continuous Integration lets testers run Selenium automation tests as a part of the CI/CD pipeline by using Jenkins pine line
• We can integrate selenium with Extent and Allure for reporting purpose. So that we can get customized report which is very useful for analysis

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Disadvantages of Selenium WebDriver

The advantages of selenium WebDriver outnumber its disadvantages. However, as a tester, it is important to make an informed choice before choosing the best-suited framework for the project.

Below are some of the disadvantages of Selenium WebDriver:

• We cannot write scripts for Windows-based applications.
• It does not have any in-built reporting mechanism and hence we must integrate separately.
• No test tool integration for test management in Selenium.
• We cannot automate scenarios like OTP and file uploading using selenium.

However, these drawbacks are nothing compared to its advantages

Selenium WebDriver Download, Installation and Set Up

In this Selenium WebDriver section, we will be using the Windows OS with Java as the programming language and Eclipse as the IDE (Integrated Development Environment). Starting off with the prerequisites:

1. Install Java
2. Install Eclipse IDE
3. Install Selenium WebDriver

Install Java

You need to follow the steps below, to download Java in your system.

Step 1: Go to the official Java Download Website and download latest version of the the JDK for Windows x64 Installer.

Step 2: Accept the license agreement in the pop-up and click on Download.

Step 3: Once the download is completed, go to Downloads folder, and double click the executable so that Java is installed in your system.

Set Up Environment Variables

Once the installation is done you need to set the Environment Variables using the below steps-

Step 1: Open your system’s settings and select Advanced System Settings from the System dialog window.

Step 2: Click on the Environment Variables button on the next window.

Step 3: Now under the System Variables double click on Path.

Step 4: Add the complete path of the Java installation directory as per your system location and click OK.

To confirm that the java is installed and variables are set correctly, open Command Prompt and run command: java -version. You can see the java version installed in your system.

Your first prerequisite is fulfilled. Now we will go through how to install eClips IDE.

Install Eclipse

Step 1: Go and download Eclipse IDE from the Official Eclipse website. Select the download location on your system architecture.

Step 2: Once the download is done, extract the zip file at a location as per your requirements.

Step 3: Next open the extracted folder and double click on eclipse.exe.

The eclipse will open, close the welcoming window. We will configure it letter. So, we have downloaded our second prerequisite.

Download Selenium WebDriver and Set Up

The next and last step is to install the Selenium Standalone Server which is explained in the steps below-

Step 1: Go to the Official Selenium Website.

Step 2: You will be able to see a section for Selenium Client & WebDriver Language Bindings. You can download the client libraries corresponding to your language preference. We will be working with Java Client Bindings in this section.

Step 3: Once the file is downloaded, extract it to a folder so that you can use it later.

Step 4: You can now see the corresponding extracted file in the selected destination folder.

Step 5: Open the folder and you will be able to see the jar files, a libs folder(which contains some more jar files) and a Change log file.

Step 6: Next, you must download the browser drivers that will help you start the browser. You can download drivers from google.

Step 7: Keep browser drivers in specific locations so use it while executing scripts.

In this Selenium WebDriver chapter, we have deep-dived into the basics of Selenium WebDriver, its components, Selenium advantages and disadvantages and configuration of selenium

 

Happy Learning.