What are the Main Features That Make Selenium a Popular Testing Framework?

What are the Main Features That Make Selenium a Popular Testing Framework?

Selenium testing framework is more than a single testing tool. It is an entire suite of testing software, with each tool performing a unique Selenium quality assurance testing need in a business. Companies benefit from this free, open-source automation tool whenever they need to run validation procedures for their website apps across multiple platforms and browsers. 

A major advantage of the selenium framework is that it is compatible with multiple programming languages such as Python, Java, and C++ when creating test scripts. All tests done through Selenium are called Selenium testing. 

The contents of the Selenium Testing Suite that make it popular

Integrating selenium testing into your testing process will reduce human participation so they can redirect their resources to the other task. Selenium testing is open source so everyone can benefit by using it properly. Selenium automation test suites can be tested across several browsers and operating systems. The Selenium testing suite contains four different kinds of software and each has a unique role it plays in the testing process. The four tools were not created at once but in phases. Their purpose of creation was to meet the needs that their predecessors could not meet. This is how Selenium ended up becoming a 4-piece software kit. 

The Selenium IDE – Integrated Development Environment

Its implementation is done as a Firefox extension for the provision of record and playback functions of written text scripts. This tool can export scripts in multiple programming languages after recording for use in Selenium WebDriver or RC. 

Selenium RC – Remote Control

The RC tool allows the writing of website apps UI tests in any applicable programming language. It makes testing possible by including an HTTP proxy server. The purpose of the proxy server is to make the browser under test to detect the website app as though it is directly from it. The RC uses two features to achieve this 

• The proxy HTTP server requests the web
• The RC Client contains the programming code. 

The WebDriver

The WebDriver is also called Selenium 2. It is the tool that succeeded Selenium RC. In the entire Selenium suite, this is the most important component. Its purpose is to provide the programming interface for creating and executing test cases. It is more powerful in performance compared to its predecessor, the RC. 

The WebDriver uses a different driver for each browser. The most used browser drivers are Safari, Opera, HTML, Chrome, and Mozilla. 

The Grid

The Grid enables the running of tests on multiple devices against multiple browsers in parallel. Using the Selenium Grid, companies run tests simultaneously in different operating systems on different devices. The tool achieves this functionality through its Hub Node Architecture. 

The main features of Selenium that make it popular

Selenium has powerful, unparalleled features that make it highly popular.

Supporting a wide range of browsers

Selenium automation testing can be done automatically on a wide range of browsers. To launch the browsers, testers require to program simple codes and the tool does the rest. The main browsers supported by Selenium are-

• Opera
• Google chrome
• Safari
• Firefox

Supporting a wide range of programming languages

Selenium automation testing will work seamlessly with a wide range of programming languages without the need for complex upgrades or coding. During test script writing, the tester chooses the language they are most comfortable with and selects it for automated scripts. The framework will work with any of these languages.

• Haskell
• Java
• PHP
• Python
• Objective- C
• C++
• R 
• JavaScript
• Ruby
• Perl 

Impressive testing speed

Selenium automation testing is known for its high momentum in testing execution. Due to this, the framework does not require an intermediate server to support its speed. The tool conveys with the browser directly. 

Easy identification of web elements

The WebDriver features enable Selenium to find website elements in website applications. This is an advantage that gives testers an easy job when implementing tests. 

Selenium is a free, open-source tool

Anyone can download Selenium from its official website for free. The tool is open source meaning users can tweak it to favor their testing needs. It can be installed on any type of operating system or device due to its high portability advantage. The tool will run on macOS, Windows, Chrome, or Linux. The tool doesn’t require server installations because it performs direct interaction with the browser. 

Types of Selenium automated testing 

Selenium can perform a variety of automation testing as follows-

Functional testing – Done to test software functionality as per its expected functions. This test is usually automated at the UI layer of the website app under test.

Smoke testing – Tests the primary functionalities of an app.

UI testing – Tests the elements of an app’s graphical user interfaces such as its menu, buttons, check box, text alignment, etc.

Regression testing – Tests any side effects that might occur when the app is expanded by adding new codes or changes are done to fix issues.

Sanity testing – In-depth testing done after app functionalities are fixed or bugs removed

Database testing – Tests if the type of data on display and the one updated on the app’s UI is synchronizing with the stored data in the app’s datastore.

Cross over testing – Tests are done to check if an app is properly functioning with every of its supported browsers. 

Regression testing – This is the main type of automation testing done using the Selenium framework. It makes sure there are no side effects that result from application improvement or bug fixes. 

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