Blog | Practice Test Automation

Headless Browser Testing with Selenium: Elevate Your Expertise

Published by Dmitry Shyshkin on January 11, 2024

Introduction

In the ever-evolving world of software development, test automation stands as a cornerstone, ensuring the reliability and efficiency of applications. Among the diverse techniques available, headless browser testing has emerged as a key player. Leveraging tools like Selenium WebDriver, this approach allows automation engineers to run browser-based tests without the overhead of a graphical user interface. This article dives into the intricacies of headless browser testing with Selenium, unpacking its benefits, setup procedures, best practices, and much more.

What is Headless Browser Testing?

Headless browser testing with Selenium is a game-changer in the realm of test automation. But what exactly does it entail? In simple terms, it’s running browser tests without the user interface you typically see. Think of it as operating your browser in the background, unseen to the naked eye. This method is not just a neat trick; it’s packed with advantages. Speed is a significant factor—tests run remarkably faster since they aren’t bogged down by the graphical load. It also means less strain on system resources, which is a boon for continuous integration environments where conserving resources is key. Additionally, headless testing simplifies test management and execution, especially in headless-only environments like Linux servers without a GUI.

Headless Browser Testing with Selenium setup illustration

Unlock the Potential: Mastering the Test Automation Pyramid

Published by Dmitry Shyshkin on June 14, 2023

The Test Automation Pyramid is a key framework in software testing. It presents an ideal mix of automated tests. It covers unit tests, service tests, and UI tests. This blend forms the backbone of effective testing.

Employed correctly, this strategy enhances testing productivity. It does so by promoting broad test coverage. Early issue detection is a major focus. This improves software quality and assures reliability. In short, it’s the foundation for successful software development.

Understanding the Layers of the Pyramid

Let’s delve deeper into the distinct layers of the pyramid.

Unit Tests

Occupying the base layer of the pyramid, unit tests are small, efficient, and typically plentiful. They focus on testing individual components, functions, or methods within the codebase. By their nature, unit tests are quick to execute, easy to maintain, and highly effective in identifying issues at the code level.

Unusual Uses for Selenium WebDriver

Published by Dmitry Shyshkin on June 4, 2023

Selenium WebDriver is a popular tool known for automating browsers, primarily for testing web applications. However, its potential extends far beyond this conventional use. In this article, we will explore the unusual and innovative uses of Selenium WebDriver, demonstrating how it can be leveraged for tasks such as data scraping, automating web-based administration tasks, and performance monitoring, among others. Prepare to discover the versatility of Selenium WebDriver beyond web testing.

Unusual Uses for Selenium WebDriver - Image1.jpg

1. Web Scraping: Leveraging Selenium WebDriver for Efficient Data Extraction

Selenium, primarily a testing tool, offers efficient web scraping capabilities for gathering data from websites. Selenium is commonly used when websites are AJAX and JavaScript-intensive, allowing interaction with dynamic web content and enabling extraction of dynamically loaded data.

By utilizing Selenium, you can navigate through the pages, click buttons, fill forms, scroll down, and many more interactive actions that traditional web scraping libraries struggle with, thus making data extraction more straightforward.

Starting with Selenium WebDriver and Java: An Overview for Beginners

Published by Dmitry Shyshkin on May 26, 2023

Software testing plays a crucial role in the software development process. It ensures that the applications you develop, function as expected and deliver a seamless user experience. One tool that stands out in this testing space is Selenium WebDriver. In this blog post, we’ll delve into the world of Selenium, discuss why Java is a preferred language when using WebDriver, and introduce you to a beginner-friendly course designed to elevate your software testing skills.

Selenium WebDriver with Java for Beginners

Understanding Selenium

Selenium WebDriver is an open-source automation tool that allows you to perform actions on a web application just like a human user would, automating browser activities and interaction with web elements. It is an essential component of the Selenium suite, a prominent toolset for automating web browsers across various platforms.

How to deal with Element is not clickable at point exception

Published by Dmitry Shyshkin on August 11, 2021

Over the past few weeks, I saw a few people online asking about the same error. ElementClickInterceptedException: Element is not clickable at point exception. There are lots of answers online, but many of them are very different. Some of the suggested solutions work for some people, but not others.

Element is not clickable at point exception is self-explanatory. It means that the element that you’re trying to click on can’t be clicked at that particular point. It usually happens when you locate an element and try to execute a click action on it. One of the most common causes, why this error happens, are overlapping elements. Something on the page hides your element, that you are trying to click on. But the solution will be different depending on your specific case.

In this video, I decided to reproduce this error. I show why this error happens, and what I usually do to know how to fix this Element is not clickable at point exception.

The code that I use in this video is uploaded to GitHub and you can access it here: https://github.com/dimashyshkin/Element-is-not-clickable-at-point

If you are new to Selenium Webdriver with Java and TestNG, check out my courses. Learn how to create a similar framework, how to use Selenium to automate tests at work, and automate other tedious tasks, outside your QA job.

Hard and Soft Assertions in test automation

Published by Dmitry Shyshkin on May 2, 2021

One of the rules of good test automation is to write small fast atomic tests. In other words, small tests, that execute only one test case. And usually, one test case should have only one verification. However, the exception is when we make a few verifications without additional test steps in between verifications and they do not depend on each other (can be executed in any order).

Lets look at Test case 1: Positive LogIn test on our Practice Test Login page.

Open page: https://practicetestautomation.com/practice-test-login/
Type username student into the [Username field]
Type password Password123 into the [Password field]
Puch [Submit button]
Verify new page URL contains practicetestautomation.com/logged-in-successfully/
A new page should contain expected text (‘Congratulations’ or ‘successfully logged in’)
Verify button [Log out] is displayed on the new page

Steps 5, 6, and 7 are verifications, and they do not depend on each other. As a result, we can execute these verifications in any order.

In order to execute all three verifications without failing tests, we can use soft assertions instead of hard assertions.

How to find cheap flights with Selenium to save time

Published by Dmitry Shyshkin on January 10, 2021

Flight search can be a long boring task, it may take hours to manually search for cheap flights. So why not automate it?

Selenium is not just a test automation tool. It’s an automation tool, browser automation. Even if you are not a test automation engineer, you still can benefit from Selenium.

Besides using Selenium at work, to automate web tests, I used it a few times to automate other tasks. I used it to automate job search, so I could execute more job searches every day when I was looking for one. And more recently, I created a project, to automate flights search on Expedia.

I’ve used this framework for years, to save money on flights, and now want to share it with everyone, teach you guys how to use it, so you can also search for cheap flights using Selenium.

I recorded a video and uploaded it to YouTube, to show how to download the framework, and how to use it.

Best Books For Software Testers

Published by Dmitry Shyshkin on August 26, 2020

People often ask me, what are the best books I can recommend to read for software testers and test automation engineers.

Usually, I say that the best way to become a good QA and Test Automation engineer is not reading a book, but instead practicing and doing it. That’s why all my test automation courses are hands-on, with minimum theory.

However, it never hurts to add some theory, if it can benefit you. In this post, I will not bore you with “Top 10” books for software testers. I will recommend just two books: one on Software Testing, and another on Test Automation. Just two that will be enough to become a good Software QA and Test Automation Engineer.

Stop automating everything with Selenium

Published by Dmitry Shyshkin on April 27, 2020

You learned Selenium WebDriver. Automated a few tests, then a few more and more. Also, you learned some advanced tricks, strategies. You are becoming more confident in using it. It feels like there is no test that you can’t automate.
All positive test cases for the regression test suite are automated. You added negative tests. You want to automate everything with Selenium because now you know how to do that.

STOP!

Selenium WebDriver is a tool for automating Web UI tests. Not everything should be automated using Selenium. Let me show you few test cases, where it’s better NOT TO USE Selenium WebDriver, even though it’s possible to do so.

DevOps 101 for Testers

Published by Dmitry Shyshkin on November 22, 2019

Get started with CI/CD

Have you ever wondered what Is DevOps? Also, do you know, how testers can be part of the DevOps?

On November 20, Jeff Fudge was teaching Tampa QA Meetup attendees DevOps 101! Its definition & meaning, DevOps architecture & its components, different DevOps tools, its culture & processes.