Selenium-WebDriver: Some Things About Selenium

Introduction to Selenium

What is Selenium?

Selenium is open source Tool which helps to Automate Web applications Selenium is a portable software testing framework for web applications. Selenium provides a record/playback tool for authoring tests without learning a test scripting language (Selenium IDE)

Who developed Selenium?

Since Selenium is a collection of different tools, it had different developers as well. Below are the key persons who made notable contributions to the Selenium Project

Selenium Web Driver

Selenium Web Driver is the successor to Selenium RC. Selenium WebDriver accepts commands (sent in Selenese, or via a Client API) and sends them to a browser. This is implemented through a browser-specific browser driver, which sends commands to a browser, and retrieves results. Most browser drivers actually launch and access a browser application (such as Firefox or Internet Explorer); there is also an HtmlUnit browser driver, which simulates a browser using HtmlUnit.

Unlike in Selenium 1, where the Selenium server was necessary to run tests, Selenium WebDriver does not need a special server to execute tests. Instead, the WebDriver directly starts a browser instance and controls it. However, Selenium Grid can be used with WebDriver to execute tests on remote systems (see below).

In practice, this means that the Selenium 2.0 API has significantly fewer calls than does the Selenium 1.0 API. Where Selenium 1.0 attempted to provide a rich interface for many different browser operations, Selenium 2.0 aims to provide a basic set of building blocks from which developers can create their own Domain Specific Language. One such DSL already exists: the Watir project in the Ruby language has a rich history of good design. Watir-webdriver implements the Watir API as a wrapper for Selenium-Webdriver in Ruby. Watir-webdriver is created entirely automatically, based on the WebDriver specification and the HTML specification.

As of early 2012, Simon Stewart (inventor of WebDriver), who was then with Google and now with Facebook, and David Burns of Mozilla were negotiating with theW3C to make WebDriver an internet standard. In July 2012, the working draft was released.^[9] As such, Selenium-Webdriver (Selenium 2.0) aims to be the reference implementation of the WebDriver standard in various programming languages. Currently Selenium-WebDriver is fully implemented and supported inPython, Ruby, Java, and C#.

Some important Advantages and Differences of QTP and Selenium Web driver

Selenium

QTP

Open source, free to use, and free of charge.

Commercial.

Highly extensible

Limited add-ons

Can run tests across different browsers

Can only run tests in Firefox , Internet Explorerand Chrome

Supports various operating systems

Can only be used in Windows

Supports mobile devices

Supports mobile device using 3rd party software

Can execute tests while the browser is minimized

Needs to have the application under test to be visible on the desktop

Can execute tests in parallel.

Can only execute in parallel but using Quality Center which is again a paid product.

Advantages of QTP over Selenium

QTP

Selenium

Can test both web and desktop applications

Can only test web applications

Comes with a built-in object repository

Has no built-in object repository

Automates faster than Seleniumbecause it is a fully featured IDE.

Automates at a slower rate because it does not have a native IDE and only third party IDE can be used for development

Data-driven testing is easier to perform because it has built-in global and local data tables.

Data-driven testing is more cumbersome since you have to rely on the programming language's capabilities for setting values for your test data

Can access controls within the browser(such as the Favorites bar, Address bar, Back and Forward buttons, etc.)

Cannot access elements outside of the web application under test

Provides professional customer support

No official user support is being offered.

Has native capability to export test datainto external formats

Has no native capability to export runtime data onto external formats

Parameterization Support is in built

Parameterization can be done via programming but is difficult to implement.

Test Reports are generated automatically

No native support to generate test /bug reports.

Selenium	QTP
Open source, free to use, and free of charge.	Commercial.
Highly extensible	Limited add-ons
Can run tests across different browsers	Can only run tests in Firefox , Internet Explorerand Chrome
Supports various operating systems	Can only be used in Windows
Supports mobile devices	Supports mobile device using 3rd party software
Can execute tests while the browser is minimized	Needs to have the application under test to be visible on the desktop
Can execute tests in parallel.	Can only execute in parallel but using Quality Center which is again a paid product.

QTP	Selenium
Can test both web and desktop applications	Can only test web applications
Comes with a built-in object repository	Has no built-in object repository
Automates faster than Seleniumbecause it is a fully featured IDE.	Automates at a slower rate because it does not have a native IDE and only third party IDE can be used for development
Data-driven testing is easier to perform because it has built-in global and local data tables.	Data-driven testing is more cumbersome since you have to rely on the programming language's capabilities for setting values for your test data
Can access controls within the browser(such as the Favorites bar, Address bar, Back and Forward buttons, etc.)	Cannot access elements outside of the web application under test
Provides professional customer support	No official user support is being offered.
Has native capability to export test datainto external formats	Has no native capability to export runtime data onto external formats
Parameterization Support is in built	Parameterization can be done via programming but is difficult to implement.
Test Reports are generated automatically	No native support to generate test /bug reports.