Selenium is unquestionably one of the greatest test automation frameworks for web automation testing among the many available on the market. Selenium may be used with any programming language that allows for the creation of tests, such as Java, Python, C#, JavaScript, Ruby, and others. It may be coupled with other automated testing frameworks like JUnit and TestNG for improved test administration and orchestration. However, in order to get the most out of Selenium automation testing, you must understand the basics of each i.e. what Selenium Standalone Server and Selenium IDE are, how to run Selenium IDE tests with them, and what are their advantages.
To know more in detail about Selenium Standalone Server and Selenium IDE, continue reading!
But First, What Is Selenium?
Countless hours are spent testing a web app in and out of the local development environment to ensure it works properly. Hundreds of test case scenarios were enacted and reenacted on all benchmarked browsers before Selenium, with human testers indicating what failed and attempting to locate the cause of the failure. An end-to-end system test might take anything from days to weeks to complete, depending on the size of the manual testing crew.
Selenium is an open-source web browser automation tool. It offers a single interface for writing test scripts in a variety of programming languages, including Ruby, Java, NodeJS, PHP, Perl, Python, and C#. Today’s development processes may be completed in as little as two to four weeks. In order to ship fresh, bug-free versions in that time frame, predictable, repeatable testing with near-instant feedback is required. That is why Selenium testing is so important in today’s development.
The versatility of Selenium is one of the reasons for its popularity. Individual freelance developers running a brief set of tests for troubleshooting to UI engineers doing visual regression testing following a new integration may all utilize Selenium to verify their code/app.
What Is Selenium Standalone Server?
The Selenium Standalone server is a Java jar file used to launch the Selenium server. It’s a clever proxy server that lets Selenium tests send instructions to distant web browsers. The goal is to make it simple to perform tests on numerous computers in parallel.
Let’s take a minute to define what a Selenium jar is before going further.
Selenium Jar is a jar that contains a collection of APIs for several languages (Java, Python, C#, Javascript, and so on). Tools like Maven or Gradle, open-source build automation systems, may get the client jar. If the jar files’ dependencies aren’t accessible, testing in a specific programming language is impossible.
The selenium-server-standalone JAR file may be downloaded to utilize a Selenium Grid. Selenium-server provides access to all of the components. The standalone JAR includes the Selenium server and client-side bindings, allowing you to test without the need for any additional jar files.
Key Benefits Of Selenium Standalone Server
Some of the primary benefits of the Selenium Standalone Server are:
- A single server performs all tasks without the need for external drivers.
- Distributes tests to a distant computer or several machines.
- Performs automated testing on a variety of browsers and versions.
How to execute a test with Selenium Standalone Server?
In this segment of the blog, we will look at how to use Selenium Grid in standalone mode to run test cases.
- Step 1: Get the Selenium Standalone Server/Grid jar file (selenium-server-4.1.1.jar) from the Selenium website.
- Step 2: Run the server as a standalone process. Type “java -jar selenium-server-4.1.1.jar standalone” in the terminal after navigating to where the jar file was downloaded.
- Step 3: With the associated node, the local Grid is now ready to receive and run test cases. All accessible browsers and session data of browsers may be accessed at http://localhost:4444/ui/index.html#/ after the Server is launched.
- Step 4: To run test cases, start the browser from the Grid and call it with the grid URL and browser capabilities using RemoteWebDriver.
What is Selenium IDE, and how does it work?
Selenium IDE is an open-source framework that uses simple add-ons to run automated test cases in all browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. In the browser, you may record and replay tests. Selenium automated testing is primarily used for online applications. However, it is not restricted to that. It may also be used to automate tedious web administration chores such as establishing security protocols, altering programs, producing backups, addressing software issues, etc.
Selenium IDE is one of the greatest alternatives for entry-level users to do functional and regression testing, with many accurate user evaluations.
Some features of the Selenium IDE
The following are some of Selenium IDE’s best features:
- It is an open-source testing tool that enables you to write scripts to help with automated testing.
- Large developers have overwhelmingly backed it: The community and user base for this popular open-source automated testing tool are enormous.
- Identifying and debugging test features: Selenium IDE’s debugging tool allows you to detect breakpoints in the code rapidly.
- The Selenium IDE employs locators to discover the proper place to click. Name locators, ID locators, link locators, and other locators are available.
- If you’re using an earlier version of Selenium IDE, you may schedule the execution of scripts and tests.
- Selenium IDE utilizes Selenese commands to transform tests. Selenese is an HTML-based language that is used to test websites and apps.
Key Benefits Of Selenium IDE
Some of the critical benefits of Selenium IDE are:
- A wide range of browsers are supported
- You may find defects fast and assure bug-free websites or apps by regularly incorporating the Selenium IDE test scripts.
- Selenium IDE can record test cases automatically.
- Instead of recording or writing the whole script, the new Selenium IDE allows developers to reuse and change earlier test scripts.
How to execute a test with Selenium IDE?
Selenium IDE is a Firefox add-on that makes recording and replaying tests in Firefox a breeze. The IDE is available as a Firefox add-on. It enables you to record tests and update the test script, move instructions around, and debug them. Even without knowing a test scripting language, a tester can write tests.
- Selenium IDE Installation
Open Firefox and go to the SeleniumHQ downloads page to get the IDE. You’ll need to restart your browser after installing the add-on. After Firefox restarts, the Selenium-IDE will appear in the Firefox Tools menu.
- Recording the tests
To begin recording, choose “Start Recording” and go through the phases of your application that need to be tested. The IDE will automatically insert instructions into the test case based on your activities. In the test case panel, you may see a list of commands. After you’ve gone through all of the processes in your app, click the “Stop Recording” option. You may rearrange the instructions in the test example or change the values.
Click, clickAndWait, type, and select are the most often used commands. The commands verifyTextPresent and verifyElementPresent may also be used for verification and assertion.
- Running the test
The Base URL box at the top of the Selenium-IDE window comes in handy for running test cases across several domains. The tester may replay the same test on other environments by modifying the URL to link to beta or prod environments.
Simply click the “Run” button to begin the test. The speed of the exam may be adjusted using the speed control slider. As soon as the test begins, you’ll see that the instructions are performed in a logical sequence. You may pause/stop the test at any point throughout its execution and resume playing.
Even if you don’t pick the Log tab, error messages and progress messages are automatically shown in the Log pane when you execute your test case. These notifications are often helpful for troubleshooting test cases.
- Test Suites
Multiple test cases may be created and saved as a test suite. This feature aids in executing a set of test cases at the same time. Most of the time, test suites are run as a single continuous batch process.
You may run the tests against various browsers using a simple command-line interface that runs the Selenium-RC server and let Selenium perform the testing for you after they’ve been built.
Conclusion
We understood how to compile and Selenium Standalone Server and Selenium IDE in this blog. On one hand, Selenium Standalone Server is a Java ARchive (JAR) that operates on a machine that is not connected to the browsers being tested. It sends instructions and tests to those browsers, collects test data, reports issues to the test host for reporting, and is controlled by a server-side API and a web-based administration panel.
On the other, Selenium IDE is basically a record/run tool for developing Selenium Test cases. It is a simple-to-use tool from the Selenium Test Suite that may be used by anybody who is new to writing automated test cases for online applications. Platforms like LambdaTest proposes a dependable, scalable, secure, and high-performing test execution cloud that enables to perform live testing of websites and web apps across 3000+ browsers and OS combinations and help teams to shorten release cycles. You can test in parallel to reduce test execution time by more than tenfold.
Author Bio: Vixit Raj is Product Growth and Marketing Specialist in LambdaTest : The Cross Browser Web App Testing Platform. An E&C engineering background & Digital Marketing domain experience of 5+ years has aroused his interest towards learning more about latest technology advancements, product marketing, coding and testing.