Selenium-Tips.md

Selenium Technical Tips

Select element from a web page

The following are the list of object identifier or locators supported by selenium.

• CSS
• XPath
• ID
• Name
• Class Name
• Linktext
• Partial Linktext
• Tag Name

ID/Name is the first choose. However, if there is no ID/Name or they are dynamic you might think about CSS or XPath.

Sometimes CSS Selecor change a lot when the UI is re-design. In this case, XPath might be a good option.

CSS Vs. XPath

There are a lot of discussion about CSS Vs. XPath. I don't think performance is a big issue. Because Selenium doesn't focus on performance testing. In most of cases page rendering take more time than identify an element. You can also check this article Css Vs. XPath. The conclusion is "For starters there is no dramatic difference in performance between XPath and CSS."

Using ID in CssSelector

By.CssSelector("#ID")

Using Name in CssSelector

By.CssSelector(".Name")

SelectByText()

    SelectElement select = new SelectElement(element);
    select.SelectByText("Perth"); 

Using text get element in XPath

By.XPath("//td[text()='Profile']")

By.XPath("//a[contains(text(),'Profile')]")

With relative XPath, we can locate an element directly as well irrespective of its location in the DOM.

By.XPath("//table/*/td[2][text()='Profile}']/../td[8]/div/button");

JavaScript: Get Elements by ID, Tag, Name, Class, CSS Selector

    IJavaScriptExecutor js = (IJavaScriptExecutor)Browser.WebDriver;
    js.ExecuteScript(
        $"document.querySelector('#createModal > div > div > div.modal-body > div:nth-child(1) > span > span > span.k-input.ng-scope').innerHTML='{baseLine}'");

Setup Browse option

public static void Initialize()
{
    if ( WebDriver == null )
    {
        TestEnvironment.Initialize();

        string strBrowserType = "";
        string driverPath = "";
                        
        BaseUrl = TestEnvironment.BaseUrl;

        // Read from App.config
        strBrowserType = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["BrowserType"];
        driverPath = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["BrowerDriverPath"];

        _browserType = strBrowserType;

        if (_browserType.Equals("IE"))
        {
            foreach (var process in Process.GetProcessesByName("IEDriverServer"))
            {
                process.Kill();
            }

            var ieOptions = new InternetExplorerOptions();
            ieOptions.IgnoreZoomLevel = true;
            ieOptions.IntroduceInstabilityByIgnoringProtectedModeSettings = true;

            // To resolve IWebElement.Sendkeys() is too slow
            ieOptions.RequireWindowFocus = true;

            // Setting attribute EnableNativeEvents to false enable click button in IE
            ieOptions.EnableNativeEvents = false;

            // Setting attribute EnablePersistentHover to false enable action.MoveToElement() in IE
            //IEOptions.EnablePersistentHover = false;

            WebDriver = new InternetExplorerDriver(driverPath, ieOptions);
            WebDriver.Manage().Window.Maximize();
            TurnOnWati();
        }
        else if (_browserType.Equals("Chrome"))
        {
            foreach (var process in Process.GetProcessesByName("chromedriver"))
            {
                process.Kill();
            }
            
            ChromeOptions chromeOptions = new ChromeOptions();
            chromeOptions.AddArguments("start-maximized");
            //WebDriver.Manage().Window.Maximize();

            // Setting no-sandbox for TFS build agent
            chromeOptions.AddArguments("--no-sandbox");                    

            WebDriver = new ChromeDriver(driverPath, chromeOptions);
            TurnOnWati();
        }
        else
        {
            throw new System.ArgumentException($"The browser type {_browserType} is not supported");
        }
    }

Dealing with AJAX / Waiting a page loaded

1. Wait within a time frame.

System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(10000);

2. Explicit waits until time out.

WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10));
wait.Until(d => d.FindElement(By.Id("receiptNo")) );

3. Implicit waits until time out

webDriver.Manage().Timeouts().ImplicitWait = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(15);

Using Action Class to emulate advanced interactions, rather than using the Keyboard or Mouse directly.

var element = Browser.WebDriver.FindElement(By.XPath(xPath));
Actions actions = new Actions(Browser.WebDriver);
actions.MoveToElement(element);
actions.Perform();

element.Click();

Executes JavaScript in the context of the currently selected frame or window

((IJavaScriptExecutor) Browser.WebDriver).ExecuteScript("window.scrollTo(0,200)");

Dealing with Element is not currently visible and may not be manipulated exception

// Click the parent node make select element visible
Browser.WebDriver.FindElement(By.CssSelector("#createModal > div > div > div.modal-body > div:nth-child(1) > span > span > span.k-select")).Click();

new Actions(Browser.WebDriver)
    .MoveToElement(Browser.WebDriver.FindElement(By.CssSelector("#scenarioDropdown"))).SendKeys(baseLine).Perform();

Upload File

Note: Can't run in C# debug mode

using System.Windows.Forms;

    SendKeys.SendWait(@"C:\temp\avatar.jpg");
    SendKeys.SendWait(@"{Enter}");

Windows Security

Add user name and password in front of URL. Encrypt password in your code, so others can't see the password.

BaseUrl = $"https://{UserName}:{Password}@{BaseUrl}";

Using Actions class to first focus on the element then send required keys.

Please try Actions class to first focus on the element then send required keys.

    Actions actions = new Actions(driver);
    actions.moveToElement(element);
    actions.click();
    actions.sendKeys("SOME DATA");
    actions.build().perform();

Troubleshooting

IELaunchURL() error

OpenQA.Selenium.WebDriverException: 'Unexpected error launching Internet Explorer. Unable to use CreateProcess() API. To use CreateProcess() with Internet Explorer 8 or higher, the value of registry setting in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\TabProcGrowth must be '0'.'