IntelliJ IDEA 2023.3 Help

Selenium

Selenium is a widely used open-source testing framework for automating web browser interactions. The framework supports various web browsers and platforms, making it versatile for comprehensive web application testing.

Selenium support allows you to create a dedicated project for automated tests in Java, Kotlin, Groovy, and Python. You can choose Maven or Gradle for dependency management. To manage test cases, you can select TestNG or JUnit.

Create a new Selenium project

  1. In the main menu, go to File | New | Project. Alternatively, if you're on the Welcome screen, click New Project.

  2. From the list on the left, select Selenium.

    Creating a new Selenium project
  3. Name the new project and change its location if necessary.

  4. (Optional) Enable the Create Git repository option to place the new project under version control. If you do not want to do it now, you can do it later at any time.

  5. Select the Language that you want to use.

  6. Select the build system that you want to use in your project: Maven or Gradle.

  7. Select the test framework that you want to use for test cases management: JUnit or TestNG.

  8. From the JDK list, select the JDK that you want to use in your project.

    If the JDK is installed on your computer, but not defined in the IDE, select Add JDK and specify the path to the JDK home directory.

    If you don't have the necessary JDK on your computer, select Download JDK.

  9. (Optional) Enable the Add sample code parameter.

  10. Click Next.

  11. Select the Selenium version that you want to use and add the required dependencies.

    Adding dependencies
  12. Click Create.

A new project is created according to the options that you have selected.

Add elements to code

  1. Open the file where you want to add an element.

  2. Click the Web Inspector button on the right-hand sidebar to open the Web Inspector toolbar window.

  3. Specify the URL of the page in the address bar.

    Address bar controls
  4. Click The Select Element in Page button and select the element that you want to add in the Web Inspector.

    Select element in page
  5. Once the element is selected, click Add Element to Code to add the element to the code.

    The Add Element to Code button

    To add a specific type of the selector (ID, Name, Tag with classes, and so on), click Add Element to Code By and select the required option.

    Add elements to code by

    If you want to switch specifically between CSS and XPath locators, click and select the required locator type.

    Select locator type

As a result, a piece of code is generated and added to the code editor.

Customize the locator template

If you want to customize how selected elements are added to your code, you can modify the template:

  1. Click the framework name on the Status bar. The UI Automation Framework menu opens.

    Customize template
  2. Select the Customize Template option.

  3. In the File and Code Templates dialog, select the required framework from the list.

    The File and Code Templates dialog
  4. Rewrite the code generation algorithms for the web element locator.

  5. Click OK to save changes.

As a result, the locators will be added to the code according to the updated code generation algorithms.

Run tests

  • To run your tests, click the the Run button gutter icon next to the test class or test method, then select the Run option from the list.

    Run tests

    Alternatively, place the caret at the test class to run all tests in that class, or at the test method, and press Ctrl+Shift+F10.

You can run tests in a more customizable way using the run/debug configurations. For more information, refer to Run tests.

Review test results

When the tests finish running, the results are displayed on the Test Runner tab of the Run tool window. On this tab, you can rerun tests, export and import test results, see how much time it took to run each test, and perform other actions.

Test results shown on the Test Runner tab of the Run tool window

For more information, refer to Explore test results.

Debug tests

In general, the debugging procedure includes the following steps:

  1. Set breakpoints for the lines of code where the execution must be suspended.

  2. Run your code in debug mode.

  3. Use the Debug tool window to analyze the code and locate potential issues.

  4. Fix the issues.

To reproduce these steps in the IDE, do the following:

  1. In the gutter, hover over the executable line of code where you want to suspend the execution and click .

    Set a breakpoint
  2. Click in the gutter and select Debug. This starts the debugger session and runs your code.

    Start the debug session
  3. Once the program hits the breakpoint, the execution becomes suspended, and you can review the results of the debugger session on the Debug tool window.

    Debug tool window overview

For more information on debugging, refer to Debug code.

Modify a run/debug configuration

If you want to modify the startup properties for your tests, edit the run/debug configuration:

  1. Click the current configuration in the run/debug configuration switcher and select the Edit Configurations... option.

    Select the run/debug configuration
  2. In the Run/Debug Configurations dialog, configure the required startup properties.

    Configure startup properties

For more information on run/debug configurations, refer to Run/debug configurations.

Use Selenoid for cross-browser testing

Selenoid is an implementation of the Selenium hub for Docker, which allows you to execute automated tests on web browsers running in Docker containers. For each test, Selenoid creates a container with the specified web browser, environment, and settings.

Run Selenoid on Docker

  1. Open the browsers.json file in the editor.

  2. On the panel above the editor, click Launch.

    Running Selenoid on Docker

The IDE will pull all the required containers with the browsers, and run the main Selenoid container to manage them.

There are additional options available in the Selenoid run configuration settings, such as output destination folders for logs and videos. To access these options, click Configure on the pane above the editor when the browsers.json file is opened. For the detailed description of the options, refer to Docker run configurations.

Last modified: 19 March 2024