Selenium IDE - A Complete Guide

Let’s take a look at the topics we’ll be covering in this blog:

• What is Selenium IDE?
• Selenium IDE Features
• Benefits of Selenium IDE
• What is Selenese in Selenium?
• Selenium Commands Classification
• Selenium IDE Limitations
• Selenium IDE Installation Procedure
  • How to Download & Install Selenium IDE for Firefox?
  • How to Download & Install Selenium IDE for Chrome?
• Conclusion

Selenium IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is a plug-in for the Mozilla Firefox web browser for running Selenium scripts. It allows software testing professionals to control the tests, such as record, edit, play, debugs, etc. It consists of the core of Selenium which executes the tests. It does not just control the tests, but it provides an environment for the scripts to run.

There are various features available in Selenium IDE:

• Automatically record test cases – Selenium IDE comes with a feature of automatically recording test cases. It can do that by understanding how a particular web application or website has been interacting with the system. In case you don’t want to use this feature, you may disable it.
• In-built Assertion Functionality – Users can verify and add asserts to the test scripts which are built on Selenium IDE. These commands are useful for users who want to be thorough with the properties of web pages. A text box with a list of verifying and assert commands pop up every time the user clicks on any element. This list keeps on expanding for as long as the user uses Selenium IDE.
• Comes with multiple actions – Selenium IDE lets users perform multiple actions using Selenese commands. We’ll talk more about them later in the blog.
• Responsive web bugs have nowhere to hide – Selenium IDE helps identify the actual case of bugs in the front-end. Applitools Root Cause Analysis can be analyzed by running a Selenium IDE script with the Visual Grid. Once the bug is found, you can click on it to open the Document Object Model (DOM) and Cascading Style Sheet (CSS).
• Third-party plugins support – Selenium IDE supports third-party plugins. You can use these plugins to upload scripts to a cloud, monitor production application services, etc.
• Runs from Continuous Integration build scripts – Selenium IDE Runner can easily fit into the CI build scripts. This is only possible if the CI server can call selenium-ide-runner as well as upload the .side file.
• Selenium IDE is now cross-browser – Selenium IDE is now also available on Google Chrome, Firefox Add-on, and IE Safari.
• Visually test responsive web apps – Selenium IDE lets users test their web pages on the Visual Grid. It has around 50 emulated devices, browsers as well as viewports.

• It provides users with the ability to record their test cases automatically, depending on the interactions with the browser
• It provides a lot more flexibility to the users in using test cases
• It works on Selenese commands and helps IDE help with what has to be done
• It lets developers set breakpoints when trying to debug test cases
• It lets users reuse the test cases using the run command

Selenium commands are written in a language called Selenese. Selenese commands are used in testing web applications. These commands help Selenium understand what has to be done and what operation has to be executed.

There are three main classifications of the Selenium commands:

• Actions – These commands help change the condition of apps
• Accessors – These commands help in enabling the verification and storage of the app
• Assertions – These commands help the users compare the actual and expected results

• Can’t use it for testing huge data
• Cannot test database connections
• Unable to handle dynamic web apps
• Can’t take screenshots if a test fails
• Cannot generate reports of the results

As mentioned above, Selenium IDE can be installed as an add-on in both Firefox and Chrome. Let’s take a look at the procedure to do the same.

In order to download and install the Selenium IDE follow the given steps:

Step 1: Launch the Firefox browser and visit the following link

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/selenium-ide/

and click on the ‘Add to Firefox’ button.

Step 2: Click on the Install button and let it finish the procedure.

Step 3: A pop-up window will appear. Click on ‘Restart Now’.

Step 4: Launch Selenium IDE by going to the Firefox Menu button, clicking on the developer, and then Selenium IDE.

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