Selenium 4 Beta 1 is the latest available version of Selenium automation testing tool. It is an advanced tool suite that has various components included in it i.e., Selenium WebDriver, Selenium IDE and Selenium Grid. This tool suite comes with various features such as Selenium Grid, W3C compliance, advanced IDE, New APIs, and many more. The latest Selenium version has several additional benefits like seamless integration, parallel testing, cross-browser testing, better documentation, etc. that make Selenium testing much easier.

Selenium 4 – New Features And Improvements (Infographic)

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Today, every business needs high-quality software in less time, and to achieve high-quality software, organizations need effective software testing by leveraging automation testing. With agile and DevOps methodologies on the go, software automation testing is taking new heights. The test automation process helps to quicken the testing process with re-usable test suites, and there are many test automation frameworks used by QA testers.

Content 1.  Selenium Tool Overview 2.  Major differences between Selenium 2 and Selenium 3 3.  What is Selenium 4? 4.  What is the difference between Selenium 3 and Selenium 4? 5.  What are the new features of Selenium 4? 6.  What is deprecated and changed in Selenium 4? 7.  How can TestingXperts (Tx) help businesses with their Selenium Automation Testing need? 8.  Conclusion

Selenium Tool Overview

Though there are varieties of automation frameworks available, one framework that is widely used by testing teams across the globe for automation testing is the selenium framework. Different versions of Selenium released in the market include Selenium 1 (Selenium RC), Selenium 2, Selenium 3, and the recently updated Selenium 4 beta. Selenium tool has a marked presence in the automation testing world due to its open-source nature and numerous features that make the testing process faster when compared to other tools.

Selenium is the most preferred tool suite that is used to automate tests for web applications. The tool has the capability to operate across different browsers and operating systems. Selenium  is an automation test suite that has various components given below:

– Selenium Core

– Selenium RC

– Selenium IDE

– Selenium Grid

– Selenium Webdriver

Selenium 2 and Selenium 3 have been in use for many years now, and have some differences between them given in a tabular form below.

Major differences between Selenium 2 and Selenium 3

What is Selenium 4?

Selenium 4 Beta 1 is the latest version of Selenium that has been released on 15^th February 2021. This new tool suite comes with advanced features such as Selenium grid, W3C compliance, advanced IDE, New APIs, and many more. Selenium 4  is a suite of tools that has various components in it as given below:

Selenium WebDriver –

It is an open-source API that allows the creation of robust browser-based regression automation suites and tests, scales, and distributes scripts across many environments. The webDriver also allows to interact with the browser just like a real user

Selenium IDE –

It is a Chrome and Firefox add-on that simply records and playbacks the user interactions with the browser

Selenium Grid-

It allows saving time by distributing and running tests on multiple browsers, operating systems, and machines. It enables the management of multiple environments from a central point.

What is the difference between Selenium 3 and Selenium 4?

What are the new features of Selenium 4?

1. WebDriver became W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Standardization:

• Selenium WebDriver is now W3C Standardized, and this WebDriver provides a friendly and flexible API for browser automation

• W3C standard encourages compatibility across various software implementations of WebDriver and API.

• Most of the W3C standards revolve around the standardization of web technologies, making the framework more stable and reducing complexities across browsers.

2. Selenium Grid enhanced with updates:

• The earlier versions of Selenium Grid were complex as it was based on Hub and Node(s) architecture. The Hub and Node(s) need to be separately started when performing automation tests.

• In Selenium 4, Hub and Node (s) are packed in a single jar file, which means once the server starts, it acts as both Hub and Node.

• The Grid also supports IPV6 addresses, allowing its users to communicate with the Grid using the HTTPS protocol with support for TLS connections.

• Selenium Grid has a more scalable and traceable infrastructure that supports four processes: Router, Session Map, Distributor, and Node.

• The new Selenium Grid comes with Docker support, allowing testers and developers to spin up containers rather than setting up heavy virtual machines.

The above feature gives users the flexibility of deploying Selenium Grid on Kubernetes. Selenium Grid 4 can be beneficial and can result in the DevOps process as it supports tools like AWS, Azure, and more.

3. Selenium 4 IDE upgraded:

• Selenium IDE is a record and playback tool that was available as an add-on for Firefox in the earlier Selenium versions but got deprecated as the latest Firefox versions were standardized under the Web Extension Mechanism.

• Selenium 4 version has it as an add-on for major web browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, MS Edge, etc.

• The latest update has a user interface to deliver an intuitive user experience, and it also comes with a SIDE tool, i.e., Selenium IDE runner, that allows QAs to run projects on a node.js platform.

• This feature enables QA teams to run cross-browser tests on local or Cloud Selenium Grid. It has an improved control flow mechanism that allows testers to write better “while” and “if” conditions.

• Another feature includes the code for test cases recorded using updated Selenium IDE can be exported to the desired programming language like Java, C#, Python, .NET, and JavaScript, thus giving more flexibility to testers.

4. Relative Locators for automation scripts

• Selenium 4 brought an easy way of locating elements with the inclusion of relative locators.

• Relative locators, also referred to as Friendly locators, help locate WebElements near to, left of, right of, above, and below a specified element.

• It supports the usage of withTagName (in Selenium 4 Java) or with_tag_name (in Selenium 4 Python). It helps locate web elements based on the visual location relative to other DOM elements.

5. Chrome Debugging Protocol (CDP)

• Selenium 4 provides native support for Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP) through the DevTools interface.

• It allows QAs to use Chrome development properties like Fetch, Network, Profiler, Performance, Application cache, and more.

• This feature helps developers and QAs to test and resolve critical bugs for specific web pages faster and on the fly.

• QA teams can also leverage the APIs offered by Chrome DevTools to simulate poor network conditions and perform geolocation testing.

• This feature also allows testers to check how the product performs under varying network conditions such as 3G, 4G, 5G, etc.

6. Multiple Windows and Tabs Management

• While testing the software testers have to switch across multiple windows, tabs, or applications in a single test flow.

• In the earlier versions on Selenium, it was not easy to manage multiple windows or tabs as it required testers to create a new Web Driver object. Post which used to switch to the new window (or tab) using the unique WindowHandle to perform subsequent actions in that window (or tab).

• But this has improved in Selenium 4. The latest version of Selenium comes with a new API – newWindow that allows testers to create and switch to a new window/tab without creating a new WebDriver object in a single test flow or session.

7. Telemetry and GraphQL:

A framework called Open Telemetry has been added to Selenium Grid. This feature brings more observability into Grid as it allows testers to see what’s happening inside the Grid, especially when something goes wrong while running the test.

Also, the Grid now has a new front-end console, which is powered by a GraphQL endpoint. It allows testers to run a GraphQL query against the Selenium grid, either distributed or on the local machine. This feature helps testers extract useful metrics and information from the Grid to fulfill the monitoring needs.

Joe Colantonio in his latest article on “What is Selenium 4? The latest in Automated Browser Testing” has in detail explained about all these above features and the importance of Selenium 4.

8. Improved Documentation:

With the earlier versions of Selenium, users use to face a lot of difficulties with the documentation part as there were some lackings in the documentation capabilities of Selenium.

This has significantly improved in the latest versions of Selenium. Selenium 4.0 provides better documentation capabilities.

• Its documentation part has been completely revamped with a neat UI that allows users to easily navigate to the desired section of the page and covers all information about tools and APIs that comes under the Selenium umbrella.

• This will help testers gain information about all the features required to get started with selenium testing.

What is deprecated and changed in Selenium 4?

1. Deprecation of Desired Capabilities

Desired capabilities were primarily used in the test script for defining the test environment (browser name, version, operating system) for executing tests on Selenium Grid. This has now been replaced with Options. It means testers now have to create an Options object, set test requirements, and pass the object to the Driver constructor. Below listed are the Options objects that have been included in Selenium 4.0

Firefox – FirefoxOptions

Chrome – ChromeOptions

Internet Explorer (IE) – InternetExplorerOptions

Microsoft Edge – EdgeOptions

Safari – SafariOptions

2. Changes in the Action Class

Action class is used to simulate input actions from a keyboard or mouse on specific web elements. For e.g, Left-click, Right-click, Double-click, etc.

Following changes have been made to Action Class in Selenium 4.0

• click(WebElement) has replaced moveToElement(onElement).click() {}

• clickAndHold(WebElement) has replaced moveToElement(onElement).clickAndHold()

• contextClick(WebElement) has replaced moveToElement(onElement).contextClick()

• doubleClick(WebElement) has replaced moveToElement(element).doubleClick()

• release() which was ealier a part of org.openqa.selenium.interactions.ButtonReleaseAction class has now been moved to Action class as per new update of Selenium 4.0

3. Deprecation of FindsBy

In the older version of Selenium, FindsBy interfaces were a part of org.openqa.selenium.internal package. It contains findElement(By) and findElements(By) methods, implemented by the RemoteWebDriver class. However, these have now been deprecated in Selenium 4.0.

4. Changes in FluentWait

In Selenium 4.0, the methods withTimeout() and pollingEvery() that are a part of the FluentWait class have been modified. The pollingEvery() method only accepts one parameter – Duration that can be in Seconds, MilliSeconds, NanoSeconds, Hours, Days, etc. Similarly, the withTimeOut() method also accepts only one parameter – Duration.

How can TestingXperts (Tx) help businesses with their Selenium Automation Testing need?

Enterprises must note that Selenium testing should be done by experienced selenium test automation engineers. To get the complete benefits of selenium testing, businesses can partner with an experienced automation engineer from an independent testing services provider.

TestingXperts (Tx) is a NextGen QA and Software testing company that has dedicated teams with core expertise on all industry-leading tools like Selenium, HP UFT, Coded UI, TestComplete, Ranorex, Appium, etc. We have a global presence with offices in the USA, Canada, UK, Netherlands, Singapore, and test labs strategically placed in multiple locations in India (Chandigarh, Hyderabad, and Bangalore).

Conclusion

Today, almost every business has realized the importance of automation testing. And to fulfil this growing demand for automation testing numerous test automation tools and frameworks are made available in the market today. Out of all the available automation testing frameworks and tools, one tool that is widely used by testers all across the globe is Selenium. Recently a new update of Selenium was rolled out in the market that gained a lot of attraction from the audience. The latest Selenium version i.e., Selenium 4.0 has several additional benefits like seamless integration, parallel testing, cross-browser testing, better documentation, etc. that make Selenium testing much easier. Businesses must read all the features and differentiators of Selenium 4.0 as mentioned in this blog before investing in any automation testing framework or tool.

The post What’s new in Selenium 4 – Key Features and Differentiators first appeared on TestingXperts.

Contents 1. Why Your Business Should Prefer Selenium Automation Testing? 2. Key Features of Selenium Automation Testing Framework 3. Significance of Selenium Automation Testing 4. Best Practices of Selenium Automation Testing 5. Conclusion

Software test automation is the key to success in today’s agile and DevOps processes, as the test automation tools and frameworks deliver faster and quality releases due to accurate testing that is achieved with effective test scripts execution. Test automation tools are available as both open source tools and paid tools. Selenium tool is the most widely used open-source test automation tool. It is best suited for all web applications across browsers and delivers effective results for all tests and is an easy-to-use tool with numerous effective features.

1. Selenium RC:

2. Selenium Integrated Development Environment (IDE):

3. Selenium WebDriver:

4. Selenium Grid:

Why Your Business Should Prefer Selenium Automation Testing?

Key Features of Selenium Automation Testing Framework:

1.Open source availability:

2. Support for Language and Framework:

3. Ease of Implementation:

4. Continuous Upgrades and Updates:

5. Parallel Test Execution:

6. Flexibility:

7. Multi-browser support:

8. Highly-Portable language:

Significance of Selenium Automation Testing:

10 Best Practices of Selenium Automation Testing Framework:

1. Understand the Application at First Place:

It is utmost important for enterprises to have a first-hand understanding of the application to be tested. If automation is required for a web application, then selenium tool can be effectively used. In addition, it is also essential to know about the underlying technologies being used. In case of desktop applications, it is essential to check if any third party controls are involved and have an evaluation of the language used to build that application.

2. Adopt Page Object Model (POM):

This is a popular test automation design pattern that helps to develop robust automation testing frameworks which are resistant to any small tweaks made in the user interface. The major benefit with this page object model is that it enhances test maintenance and reduces the duplication in code. In these models, the web pages are defined as classes and the different elements on the page become the variables and the user interactions are commonly implemented as methods. The POM frameworks are comparatively more reliable and are easy to maintain. The scripts are readable and the test scripts are reusable. It also eliminates duplicity altogether and hence POM is preferred over other models.

3. Adhere to the usage of Right Locators:

At the heart of selenium frameworks is interaction with the browser allowing to navigate, click, type, and check different objects. This all is achieved using different types of locators. These locators include Class, ID, Link Text, Xpath, CSS Selector and Tag Name. Thus, selecting the right locators is utmost important

4. Keep the Tests Independent of Each other:

Independent testing strategy wherein testing a single action or process is independent of the other. This type of testing avoids chained and brittle tests. Hence, tests should be kept as small as possible especially automated functional testing in agile and Continuous integration DevOps models on the go it is always suitable to maintain small tests.

5. Prefer to use Wait command in place of Thread. Sleep:

It is always preferred to use Wait command and it is more important to understand the usage of implicit wait and explicit wait instead of using the Sleep command. This Sleep command waits until the defined time even after the task is completed; while wait command performs the actual time to wait. Sleep command slows down the test while with the Wait, the test time is not affected.

6. Use Selenium for System Functional testing:

Automation testing framework using Selenium is best suited when the same test and the same code is used for different inputs. It is most preferred for system functional testing as well as for browser compatibility testing.

7. Prefer to Use Java Runtime Environment (JRE):

The Selenium server is programmed with Java and hence it is important to use latest version of JRE to avoid any run time errors.

8. Ensure proper communication between QA, Developers, and Operations teams:

With the agile and DevOps methodologies on the go, it is important to have proper collaboration between various teams of QA, developers and operations to achieve successful selenium testing.

9. Follow a Proper Test Naming Strategy:

10. Hire a Dedicated Automation Engineer:

Conclusion:

Enterprises should prefer Selenium as a promising test automation tool for automating all their web applications due to its enhanced features. Leverage our customized selenium test automation frameworks to achieve faster time to market and quicker ROI along with assured quality results. Connect with our testing experts today!

The post 10 Effective Practices to Follow for Selenium Automation Testing first appeared on TestingXperts.

Test Automation has been facilitating enterprises to accelerate the process of testing and realize maximum test coverage. Enterprises have made significant investments over a period of time in buying tools and building test automation suites. As the application landscapes grow more complex with the introduction and expansion of digital systems, the licensing costs for COTS tools become increasingly high to justify the RoI.

Contents 1. What is HP UFT? 2. What is Selenium? 3. Migration from HP UFT to Selenium 4. Difference between UFT and Selenium 5. Migrating to Selenium? Know its Challenges 6. How to Migrate from UFT to Selenium 7. How Can TestingXperts Help?

What is HP UFT?

UFT stands for Unified Functional Testing. Initially, it was commonly known as QTP (Quick Test Professional). UFT or the QTP is the automated functional testing tool developed by Micro Focus. In this tool, automated test cases are used to identify bugs in an application; also, it is primarily used for testing on service, functional and regression. With a planned automation testing practice using UFT, a tester can enhance the application development and reduce the cost and time.

The latest version of this tool is HP UFT 11.5; and it supports several languages and platforms such as SAP, Oracle, Web, .Net, web services, etc.

Features of UFT

• This tool can support for Windows 8.1 and Windows server 2012; run tests on safari browser
• This tool supports latest technologies such as XenDesktop 7, JDK 1.8, and SAP Web Dynpro ABAP
• This tool supports to record, run tests and create object repositories with Windows Runtime Application
• The UFT extension which is available on Chrome can receive updates automatically
• This tool can be used by both technical and non-technical testers
• The testing is completely based on scripting language VB script
• This tool enables to test the cases of both desktop and web applications

What is Selenium?

Selenium is an open-source test automation tool for testing web applications across different browsers and platforms. There are many such tools available but this tool is becoming a choice for many enterprises because of its speed and efficiency. This allows the tester to use multiple programming languages like C#, Python, Java, etc. for creating Selenium test scripts.

Features of Selenium

This tool is an open-source and portable web testing framework

• It is simple to understand and easy to use interface
• This tool supports different browsers, operating systems, and programming languages
• It can get integrated with frameworks like Ant and Maven for source code compilation
• Selenium Remote Control, which is in conjunction with WebDriver API known as Selenium 2.0 supports vibrant web pages and Ajax
• It can get integrated with automation testing frameworks like TestNG to generate reports and application testing
• The different commands that are categorized in different classes make any user easily understand and implement
• This tool supports parallel execution and thus enhances the efficiency of the tests and decreases the testing time
• Compared to other automation tools, selenium requires less amount of resources
• The playback and record feature of Selenium IDE helps to authorize tests without the requirement of learning test scripting languages
• There is no need for server installation for the web driver. There is a direct interaction between the test scripts and the browser

Migration from HP UFT to Selenium

Nowadays enterprises are progressively inclining towards open source frameworks instead of investing in licensed testing tool, especially for digital applications for which open source tools provide excellent support. Open source performance testing tools are loaded with significant features that allow swift automation testing of software applications, including web portals, mobile applications, and APIs.

HP Unified Functional Testing (UFT) is and has been an eminent force in the test automation space. However, Selenium seems to be quickly gaining supporters and becoming a more proficient open source entrant for digital applications. There are various visible distinctions between every testing tool that makes picking one or the other a forthright decision in most cases.

Difference between UFT and Selenium

Testing Applicability:

Selenium is mainly for testing web-based applications whereas UFT(HP Unified Functional Testing) can test desktop and client-server applications as well.

Cost:

Selenium is a totally free open source download and will always remain like this whereas, UFT requires a license fee for procurement and additional fees for add-ons and upgrades.

OS Compatibility:

UFT works only on windows whereas selenium works on all major OSs including Linux, OSX, Windows, Android, Solaris and, iOS.

Language Compatibility:

Selenium tests can be written in languages such as JavaScript, Perl, PHP, and Java whereas UFT tests are only written in Microsoft’s VB Script.

Cloud Ready:

Selenium grid is precisely designed to run simultaneous tests on different machines with different operating systems and using different browsers in parallel making it a perfect match for cloud-based testing services. Whereas, UFT has a one machine/ one-script execution model which cannot make an efficient use of distributed test execution with cloud infrastructure.

Object-Repository:

There is an in-built object repository in HP-UFT, whereas there is no object-repository in Selenium. But, the object is managed with the help of UI element user extension.

Ease of Execution:

Selenium can execute multiple tests simultaneously on a single machine whereas UFT tests one application per machine.

Active User Community:

Selenium is having an active user community, but it doesn’t have a dedicated team to support the users; whereas the UFT tool provides the facility of dedicated technical team to support the users. Also, there are paid services that can effectively help in resolving the issues faster.

[Blog] Migration from HP UFT to Selenium – What are the Returns?https://t.co/zH0V1TEL9A

— TestingXperts (@TestingXperts) January 30, 2017

Migrating to Selenium? Know its Challenges

Selenium is filled with advantages, but it also comes with some technical restrictions:

It is not uniformly compatible across all browsers; Selenium is most compatible with Firefox. Therefore, the scripts developed for Firefox might need some modifications to run in Chrome or IE.

• It does not come with an inherent support for data-driven testing.

• There is a limited dialog-box support.

• It is harder to accomplish image-based tests

• Coding is required for HTML tables and other elements.

These challenges can be taken care of with the help of frameworks compatible with Selenium. Though, they may add upfront development cost and effort while integrating or developing with a framework like this. It is advisable to look for already available proven Selenium frameworks with partners/ other internal teams rather than building one ground up.

How to Migrate from UFT to Selenium

• Leverage specialist capabilities from partners/ internal teams with experience in Selenium frameworks and UFT to Selenium migration

• Identify key UFT assets, the criticality of test automation suites, current investments, and RoI

• Assess the technical capabilities and of the team and choose a scripting language for the Selenium framework

• Select a test suite for POC and migrate sample scripts to Selenium

• Take learning from the POC forward and expand the conversion to Selenium gradually

• Optimize scripts for reliability, maintainability, and performance

• Execute Selenium and UFT scripts in parallel, validate and sign-off

How Can TestingXperts Help?

TestingXperts has a ready solution for converting up to 60-70% of your UFT scripts to Selenium in an automated manner. Our Test Automation framework, Tx-Automate which is an ‘out-of-the-box’ solution for Test automation providing customized reports and various third party integrations. With the experience of executing multiple UFT to Selenium projects along with the ready accelerators, Tx can help you significantly reduce your tool licensing costs, increase release velocity and achieve faster feedback with continuous integration and deployment.

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