User expectations have multiplied as a result of web apps’ ever-expanding capabilities and technological reach. Web apps often get updated with new features, and for better user engagement, they must work across all major browsers, and devices users use. Since there are various web browsers in the market it’s never easy to tell which browser users will use to see a website. Different users use different browsers based on their comfort.
This emphasizes the necessity of testing the application code across several platforms. Cross browser testing is useful in this situation. Cross-browser testing is essential since it ensures that the app functions properly on all popular browsers. This as a result will aid in user retention and satisfaction.
Developers may create applications that look good and work perfectly well on one browser, but when a user attempts to use the app on another browser, it either doesn’t work or takes a long time to load. This leads users to believe that there is a problem with the app. As a result, there is a likelihood that they will quickly switch to another available option. This behavior of not rendering perfectly refers to a problem with a website’s or an application’s compatibility with various browsers.
It is the responsibility of the testers to guarantee that the web application functions properly across a wide range of operating systems and browsers to reach the greatest number of users. In simple terms, they need to check the web application’s functionality and cross-browser compatibility.
Automated testing is required to ensure that the web app functions flawlessly across all environments because it helps to reduce the effort of manual testing. Automated cross-browser testing is more efficient and practical than manual testing since test scripts are written and executed automatically using tools like Selenium for the teams to shorten their release cycles and ship code more quickly. Selenium is currently regarded as one of the best frameworks for running automated tests by testers all around the world.
This article explains how to execute the first Selenium JavaScript test to carry out automated cross-browser testing with Selenium. Before we get there, let’s first talk about cross-browser testing, its advantages, what Selenium is, why developers use JavaScript with Selenium for cross-browser testing, and also some best practices for Selenium cross-browser testing.
Overview of Cross browser testing
Cross-browser testing is a type of non-functional testing that enables developers to guarantee that their websites and web apps are compatible with numerous browsers to give a consistent user experience across a varied, constantly expanding variety of browsers or devices.
Cross-browser testing allows for the verification that a website functions as expected on popular operating systems like Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android, across a variety of popular browsers like Firefox, Chrome, Edge, and Safari as well as on popular devices like smartphones, tablets, desktops, and laptops, etc. This enables more users to access and use the website regardless of their device, operating system, or resolution.
The positioning and validation of user input, the use of JavaScript, font size, and page alignment are a few of the changes that have been found between different browsers. In addition, some operating systems are incompatible with specific browsers. Cross-browser testing enables application testers to identify and fix these problems, enhancing the user experience.
Importance of cross-browser testing
Browser vendors typically adhere to the Open Web Standards, but they have their interpretations of them. Thoroughly debugging the website’s source code is not sufficient to guarantee that the website will render and function as intended on many browsers (or several versions of a single browser), as each one renders HTML, CSS, and JavaScript differently.
Web developers are therefore responsible for abstracting browser differences. Cross-browser testing assists them by identifying browser-specific compatibility issues so they can quickly troubleshoot them. Additionally, it helps organizations make sure that they are not missing a significant percentage of their intended visitors since the website does not function properly on their operating system and browser settings.
Cross-browser testing in Selenium
Cross-browser testing, as we have already discussed, is the process of evaluating a website’s performance across various browsers. However, testing a website manually on various browsers is extremely time-consuming, and running many test cases at once will take an exponentially longer amount of time.
Therefore, employing a cross-browser tool like Selenium simplifies this. Selenium makes it possible to run multiple test cases at once and quickly. It frequently releases updates and never stops developing.
For testing web applications, Selenium is an essential test automation framework. Additionally, it will stop any problems brought on by human error. Resulting in an excellent user experience that is uniform across all the user’s devices and browsers. Let’s discover more about selenium.
What is Selenium?
Selenium is an open-source testing framework for automated cross-browser testing. By conducting the tests simultaneously across several operating system platforms and browser versions, it can verify the compatibility of websites and web apps across a wide range of platforms and browsers. No matter what operating system or browser they are using, this guarantees that every user has the same experience.
With the help of Selenium, developers may write test scripts in a variety of scripting languages, including C#, Java, Perl, Ruby, Node, JavaScript, and others, using a single interface. Developers can select the script following the application to be tested. Selenium is a suitable alternative for cross-browser testing because it is a collection of tools with a variety of features, that include-
Selenium WebDriver- It is a collection of language-specific bindings that allows users to drive a browser. It provides an interface where numerous methods can be specified and used for end-to-end testing.
Selenium IDE- This add-on makes it simple to record and replay browser script interactions.
Selenium Grid- This is made to execute multiple tests simultaneously against a variety of hardware, operating systems, and browsers. This makes testing easier and helps test suites scale as they grow.
Before getting to how to run the first Selenium Javascript test, it is essential to understand why developers prefer JavaScript for Selenium test script.
Why do developers favor JavaScript when creating scripts for Selenium tests?
There are several tools and frameworks available in the market to perform automation testing. Out of these, Selenium continues to be a great tool for automating functional tests on websites and web applications. Over the past decade, Selenium remains the first choice among QA engineers for web automation. Therefore before choosing the scripting language for automated testing with Selenium, it is essential to perform an in-depth evaluation of the application under testing.
One of the most well-known and often used scripting languages for creating web applications is JavaScript. Therefore, combining it with Selenium creates the ideal web automation solution. Since the majority of engineers are familiar with JavaScript, writing automated tests in JavaScript and receiving immediate feedback is simple for them.
JavaScript makes the script easier to read while providing efficiency because of its carefully constructed and organized patterns and functions. Additionally, it provides security and has strong backing from a significant developer community. Because Selenium and Javascript are open source, the overall cost of testing is also reduced.
So with that said, let’s talk about some recommended practices for integrating JavaScript and Selenium. The discussion of running Selenium Javascript tests will next follow, with an emphasis on the setup and installation procedure.
Best Practises for Utilizing JavaScript and Selenium
Here are a few tips for utilizing JavaScript and Selenium for automated testing
Utilizing the Correct Locators – Since the Selenium framework is built to interact with browsers, it is essential to make use of the Appropriate Locators for the DOM (Document Object Model), which facilitates simpler object movement.
Data-Driven Testing- Performing data-driven testing will provide accurate results because it will make functional testing more efficient. So make sure the testing is data-driven.
Right selector order- Choosing the appropriate selection order is crucial for expediting testing. Therefore, for better results, use the correct selector order, which is (XPath CSS Links Text Name ID).
PageObjects- Using PageObjects can improve overall maintenance and reduce duplication and redundancy. Here, the webpages are classified as classes, their many components as variables, and user interaction is performed using methods.
Using JavaScript to get started with Selenium
Selenium is a popular choice because of its adaptability. It supports several script languages, including Ruby, Perl, C#, Python, Java, JavaScript, etc, as well as popular operating systems like Windows, Linux, etc., and browsers like Chrome, IE, Edge, Firefox, and Safari. One can obtain test results for additional analysis and improved application with the help of tool integrations like TestNG Framework.
As previously noted, the Selenium framework supports a variety of languages (and frameworks). Here is how to begin automating web application testing using Selenium and JavaScript:
Javascript Selenium testing
It must first ensure the following procedures before using JavaScript for Selenium automation testing.
The first step is to make sure NodeJS and NPM are already set up on the computer. If Node JS (or Node.js) is not already installed on the computer, then the most recent LTS version can be downloaded and installed via the official NodeJS documentation. Installing Node.js will provide users access to npm, integrated package management that can be used to install Selenium for JS. Therefore, a separate installation won’t be required.
The Selenium JavaScript bindings should then be downloaded and installed from the official website. The package can be obtained by using Node’s integrated package management (NPM). Downloading the actual drivers Selenium uses to control the browsers that the tester wants to use (such as Chrome and Firefox) is strongly advised.
These should then be saved in different directories and folders, and those folders should then be added to the system path. Once this is complete, Selenium will be able to use those executables to launch the browser that the user instructs it to.
Lastly, open Google.com in a browser and use the promise function to obtain the page’s title on the console. This will generate and execute the first test script using JavaScript and Selenium. The browser is then closed after sending this title as output to the console.
Utilizing LambdaTest cloud to run Selenium JavaScript tests
Organizations require a highly developed cloud-based testing platform with higher processing capability due to the rise in web browsers and advanced featured apps. Therefore, it is advised to shift the execution to a cloud platform like LambdaTest that simplifies and accelerates automation testing for web apps, mobile applications, and APIs to assure scalability, reliability, enhanced reporting, and efficiency.
The LambdaTest AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform makes it possible to run Selenium JavaScript test cases in the cloud for web application testing across many desktop browsers and actual mobile devices simultaneously.
The seamless integration of LambdaTest and Selenium increases application efficiency through increased automation and test coverage. The Selenium frameworks provide a built-in grid functionality that enables parallel testing, testing across browsers, and language binding support to speed up automated testing.
LambdaTest is a cloud-based platform for cross-browser testing that offers an online Selenium grid of more than 3000 real devices, all the most recent operating system platforms, as well as various browsers and their numerous versions, to test web applications and websites for various factors such as compatibility, design integrity, performance, etc.
Because testing on Cloud Selenium Grid considers real user circumstances, LambdaTest assists in locating bottlenecks and delivering a seamless and reliable user experience across various browsers and devices.
For scalability with website and web app demand, it also enables automated testing using Appium and Selenium on desktop and mobile browsers, respectively. With LambdaTest’s record and replay capability, testers may capture videos of their Selenium test sessions and later play them back to see what went wrong during execution. This gives them better debugging skills.
For quick troubleshooting and documentation, they can also take screenshots of failures during your test run, which they can then share via email, slack, or Jira. In brief, LambdaTest makes it simple for testers and the QA team to build, execute, and maintain automated tests.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Selenium is a complete framework for automating web and mobile tests that work with JavaScript. With Selenium, automation testing is easier and more efficient than ever. Writing test scripts in JavaScript makes performing automated UI testing for applications simple. This is especially useful when rapid feature additions are needed to keep up with consumer demand and short development cycles.
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