* [Python libraries](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/seleniumbase/fixtures) for quickly building [reliable WebDriver scripts](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/examples/my_first_test.py).
* [Plugins](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/tree/master/seleniumbase/plugins) for logging [data and screenshots](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/tree/master/examples/example_logs) automatically.
* Easy integration with [Selenium Grid](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/tree/master/integrations/selenium_grid), [MySQL](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/seleniumbase/core/testcase_manager.py), [Docker](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/integrations/docker/ReadMe.md), [NodeJS](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/tree/master/integrations/node_js), [Google Cloud](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/tree/master/integrations/google_cloud/ReadMe.md), and [Amazon S3](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/seleniumbase/plugins/s3_logging_plugin.py).
* Customizable with [command-line options](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/help_docs/command_line.md) and a [global configuration file](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/seleniumbase/config/settings.py).
* See the [full list of SeleniumBase features](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/help_docs/features_list.md).
Before installation, [make sure Python and web drivers are already installed](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/help_docs/instructions_overview.md).
To learn how to create one, **[read this](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/help_docs/virtualenv_instructions.md)**.<br><br><i>[docs.python-guide.org/en/latest/dev/virtualenvs/](http://docs.python-guide.org/en/latest/dev/virtualenvs/) has more details.</i>
(<i>Repeat this step if you make changes to [settings.py](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/seleniumbase/config/settings.py) or to SeleniumBase libraries.</i>)
(NOTE: If you're using Python 3.* instead of Python 2.7, use ``pip3`` in place of ``pip`` and ``python3`` in place of ``python`` in the above commands.)
If the example test is moving too fast for your eyes to see what's going on, you can run it in **Demo Mode** by adding ``--demo_mode`` on the command line, which pauses the browser briefly between actions, and highlights page elements being acted on:
You can override the default wait time by either updating [settings.py](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/seleniumbase/config/settings.py) or by using ``--demo_sleep={NUM}`` when using Demo Mode. (NOTE: If you use ``--demo_sleep={NUM}`` without using ``--demo_mode``, nothing will happen.)
(NOTE: If you're using pytest instead of nosetests and you want to use ipdb in your script for debugging purposes, you'll either need to add ``--capture=no`` on the command line, or use ``import pytest; pytest.set_trace()`` instead of using ipdb. More info on that [here](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2678792/can-i-debug-with-python-debugger-when-using-py-test-somehow).)
You may also want to have your test sleep in other situations where you need to have your test wait for something. If you know what you're waiting for, you should be specific by using a command that waits for something specific to happen.
The above code (with --pdb) will leave your browser window open in case there's a failure, which is possible if the web pages from the example change the data that's displayed on the page. (ipdb commands: 'c', 's', 'n' => continue, step, next). You may need the ``-s`` in order to see all console output.
The ``--with-testing_base`` plugin gives you full logging on test failures, which saves screenshots, page source, and basic test info into the logs folder:
(NOTE: If you're using **pytest** instead of nosetests for running tests outside of the SeleniumBase repo, **you'll need a copy of [pytest.ini](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/pytest.ini) at the base of the new folder structure, already provided here.**
###  **Creating Visual Test Suite Reports:**
The ``--report`` option gives you a fancy report after your test suite completes. (Requires ``--with-testing_base`` to also be set when ``--report`` is used because it's part of that plugin.)
(NOTE: You can add ``--show_report`` to immediately display Nosetest reports after the test suite completes. Only use ``--show_report`` when running tests locally because it pauses the test run.)
* You can use [Selenium Grid](https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/selenium/wiki/Grid2) to scale your testing by distributing tests on several machines with parallel execution. To do this, just spin up some remote machines with WebDriver installed, then update the *.cfg file that lives with your tests on your build server to point there. When doing so, add the command line option to use that file like this: ``--config=[MY_CONFIG_FILE].cfg``). An example config file called selenium_server_config_example.cfg has been provided for you in the integrations/selenium_grid folder. The start-selenium-node.bat and start-selenium-server.sh files are for running your grid. In an example situation, your Selenium Grid server might live on a unix box and your Selenium Grid nodes might live on EC2 Windows virtual machines. When your build server runs a Selenium test, it would connect to your Selenium Grid to find out which Grid browser nodes are available to run that test. To simplify things, you can use [Browser Stack](https://www.browserstack.com/automate) as your entire Selenium Grid (and let them do all the fun work of maintaining the grid for you).
* There are ways of running your tests from Jenkins without having to utilize a remote machine. One way is by using PhantomJS as your browser (it runs headlessly). Another way is by using Xvfb (another headless system). [There's a plugin for Xvfb in Jenkins](https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Xvfb+Plugin). If you have Xvfb running in the background, you can add ``--headless`` to your run command in order to utilize it. For information about the Xvfb plugin for Jenkins, [click here](http://qxf2.com/blog/xvfb-plugin-for-jenkins-selenium/). To see a real-world Jenkins example of headless browser automation in action, [check out the SeleniumBase Google Cloud ReadMe](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/integrations/google_cloud/ReadMe.md), which covers this topic with screenshots.
* If you're using the [SeleniumBase MySQL feature](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/help_docs/mysql_installation.md) to save results from tests running on a server machine, you can install [MySQL Workbench](http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/tools/workbench/) to help you read & write from your DB more easily.
* If you use [Slack](https://slack.com), you can easily have your Jenkins jobs display results there by using the [Jenkins Slack Plugin](https://github.com/jenkinsci/slack-plugin). Another way to send messages from your tests to Slack is by using [Slack's Incoming Webhooks API](https://api.slack.com/incoming-webhooks).
* If you use [HipChat](https://www.hipchat.com/), you can easily have your Jenkins jobs display results there by using the [Jenkins HipChat Plugin](https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/HipChat+Plugin). Another way is by using the [hipchat_reporting plugin](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/seleniumbase/plugins/hipchat_reporting_plugin.py) (nosetests only).
* If you're using AWS, you can setup an [Amazon S3](http://aws.amazon.com/s3/) account for saving your log files and screenshots for future viewing. SeleniumBase already has all the code you need to connect to it. You'll need to modify [settings.py](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/seleniumbase/config/settings.py) with connection details to your instance and the location in S3 where you want log files to be saved. You'll also need to add "``--with-s3_logging``" on the command line when you run your tests.
(NOTE: If you haven't configured your MySQL or S3 connections in [settings.py](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/seleniumbase/config/settings.py), don't use ``--with-db_reporting`` or ``--with-s3_logging``.)
When the testing_base plugin is used, if there's a test failure, the basic_test_info plugin records test logs, the page_source plugin records the page source of the last web page seen by the test, and the screen_shots plugin records the image of the last page seen by the test where the failure occurred. Make sure you always include testing_base whenever you include a plugin that logs test data. The db_reporting plugin records the status of all tests run into your MySQL DB. The s3_logging plugin uploads basic test info, screenshots, and page source into your S3 storage folder.
To simplify that long run command, you can create a *.cfg file, such as the one provided in the example, and enter your plugins there so that you can run everything by typing:
You can simplify that even more by using a setup.cfg file, such as the one provided for you in the examples folder. If you kick off a test run from within the folder that setup.cfg is location in, that file will automatically be used as your configuration, meaning that you wouldn't have to type out all the plugins that you want to use (or include a config file) everytime you run tests.
If you tell nosetests to run an entire file, it will run every method in that python file that starts with "test". You can be more specific on what to run by doing something like:
You'll notice that a logs folder, "latest_logs", was created to hold information about the failing test, and screenshots. Take a look at what you get. Remember, this data can be saved in your MySQL DB and in S3 if you include the necessary plugins in your run command (and if you set up the neccessary connections properly). For future test runs, past test results will get stored in the archived_logs folder if you have ARCHIVE_EXISTING_LOGS set to True in [settings.py](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/seleniumbase/config/settings.py).
**ProTip™:** You may need to use the get_page_source() method along with Python's find() command to parse through the source to find something that Selenium wouldn't be able to. (You may want to brush up on your Python programming skills for that.)
**ProTip™:** In most web browsers, you can right-click on a page and select ``Inspect Element`` to see the CSS selector details that you'll need to create your own scripts.
self.update_text(selector, text) # updates the text from the specified element with the specified value. An exception is raised if the element is missing or if the text field is not editable. Example:
```python
self.update_text("input#id_value", "2012")
```
You can also use self.add_text() or the WebDriver .send_keys() command, but those won't clear the text box first if there's already text inside.
If you want to type in special keys, that's easy too. Here's an example:
```python
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
self.find_element("textarea").send_keys(Keys.SPACE + Keys.BACK_SPACE + '\n') # the backspace should cancel out the space, leaving you with the newline
(NOTE: The short versions of this are ``self.find_element(ELEMENT)`` and ``self.assert_element(ELEMENT)``. The find_element() version returns the element)
**ProTip™:** You can use dots to signify class names (Ex: ``div.class_name``) as a simplified version of ``div[class="class_name"]`` within a CSS selector.
You can also use ``*=`` to search for any partial value in a CSS selector as shown below:
elif self.is_text_visible("Bing it on Screen!", selector):
return "Picard Microsoft Superbowl Ad 2015"
elif self.is_text_visible("OK Glass, Make it So!", selector):
return "Picard Google Superbowl Ad 2015"
elif self.is_text_visible("Number One, I've Never Seen Anything Like It.", selector):
return "Picard Tesla Superbowl Ad 2015"
elif self.is_text_visible("""With the first link, the chain is forged.
The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden,
the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.""", selector):
return "Picard Wikimedia Superbowl Ad 2015"
elif self.is_text_visible("Let us make sure history never forgets the name ... Facebook", selector):
return "Picard Facebook Superbowl Ad 2015"
else:
raise Exception("Reports of my assimilation are greatly exaggerated.")
```
#### Switching Tabs
What if your test opens up a new tab/window and now you have more than one page? No problem. You need to specify which one you currently want Selenium to use. Switching between tabs/windows is easy:
If you're not sure whether there's an alert before trying to accept or dismiss it, one way to handle that is to wrap your alert-handling code in a try/except block. Other methods such as .text and .send_keys() will also work with alerts.
#### Executing Custom jQuery Scripts:
jQuery is a powerful JavaScript library that allows you to perform advanced actions in a web browser.
If the web page you're on already has jQuery loaded, you can start executing jQuery scripts immediately.
You'd know this because the web page would contain something like the following in the HTML:
Let's say you want to verify multiple different elements on a web page in a single test, but you don't want the test to fail until you verified several elements at once so that you don't have to rerun the test to find more missing elements on the same page. That's where page checks come in. Here's the example:
self.check_assert_element('a[name="Super Fake !!!"]') # Will Fail
self.process_checks()
```
``check_assert_element()`` and ``check_assert_text()`` will save any exceptions that would be raised.
To flush out all the failed checks into a single exception, make sure to call ``self.process_checks()`` at the end of your test method. If your test hits multiple pages, you can call ``self.process_checks()`` at the end of all your checks for a single page. This way, the screenshot from your log file will make the location where the checks were made.
Let's say you have a test that sends an email, and now you want to check that the email was received:
```python
from seleniumbase.fixtures.email_manager import EmailManager, EmailException
num_email_results = 0
email_subject = "This is the subject to search for (maybe include a timestamp)"
email_manager = EmailManager("[YOUR SELENIUM GMAIL EMAIL ADDRESS]") # the password for this is elsewhere (in the library) because this is a default email account
Access credentials are stored in [settings.py](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/seleniumbase/config/settings.py) for your convenience (you have to add them first).
Delayed Data Manager usage example: If you scheduled an email to go out 12 hours from now and you wanted to check that the email gets received (but you don't want your test sitting idle for 12 hours) you can store the email credentials as a unique time-stamp for the email subject in the DB (along with a time for when it's safe for the email to be searched for) and then a later-running test can do the checking after the right amount of time has passed.
Questions or Comments? [](https://gitter.im/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase?utm_source=badge&utm_medium=badge&utm_campaign=pr-badge&utm_content=badge)
[](https://github.com/seleniumbase/SeleniumBase/blob/master/LICENSE) (The MIT License)
