What is Selenium?

Selenium is a set of tools that automates browsers, and that's really it. 0:00 You can wield that power however you'd like. 0:04 The most common use case is to take that power and use it for testing. 0:06 But it for sure isn't limited at just that. 0:09 If you have any sort of repetitive task but 0:11 that perform in a web app, you can have Selenium do that for you. 0:13 Selenium has been around for over 15 years. 0:17 It's evolved and been a lot of things over time. 0:20 And therefore, 0:22 we believe that it's important that you understand its history, just a bit. 0:23 Let's take a minute to discuss the different components that make up 0:27 Selenium. 0:30 Selenium Remote Control. 0:31 The very first version of Selenium require a tool called Selenium RC, 0:33 which stands for remote control. 0:37 The tool worked by opening up a web page that installed 0:40 a core JavaScript library that could receive commands. 0:42 That page would then open the web page under test and then interact and 0:46 send information back. 0:50 However, this was limited due to the scope of JavaScript's reach and it made 0:52 some things impossible, like working with file upload controls or native pop ups. 0:56 Selenium Server. 1:01 Selenium Server is a companion piece to Selenium RC. 1:03 It allows remote machines to connect to the server, 1:06 which then can be used to control or drive the browser on various server hardware. 1:09 This enables Selenium-based test code on multiple machines, 1:15 with potentially different configurations of operating systems, browsers, 1:18 browser versions, plugins and any number of other possible variations. 1:22 Selenium IDE. 1:27 Selenium IDE, or integrated development environment, 1:29 is a plugin in Mozilla Firefox that allows you to record your actions on a page and 1:32 then play them back. 1:37 It produces commands that are understood by Selenium RC. 1:39 It can be used to document defects and it can be used to record exploratory testing. 1:42 But it is definitely not suited for the large scale automated web testing. 1:47 Now, it's outdated now and support seems pretty limited, so tread with caution. 1:52 Selenium WebDriver. 1:57 Selenium WebDriver is also known as Selenium 2.0. 1:59 It is the result of the merging of an open source project, which was named WebDriver. 2:01 It was created by a Google engineer who was an admirer of the Selenium project, 2:07 but needed to get around those JavaScript limitations. 2:12 What it does is to create the ability to directly program interactions with 2:15 the browser, instead of interacting with the browser's JavaScript sandbox. 2:19 The merge kept the mature API inherited from Selenium RC. 2:23 We'll explore this more here in a bit. 2:28 Selenium Grid. 2:30 Selenium Grid is a smart proxy server that allows for 2:32 communicating with a cluster of machines. 2:35 This allows for parallel execution of tests. 2:38 It also enables tests to be run against environments 2:41 with a variety of specific configurations. 2:44 It has been used commercially by companies to offer test execution environments 2:46 as a service. 2:50 More in the teacher's notes. 2:51 So you can think of Selenium as an umbrella project for a range of tools and 2:53 libraries that enable and support the automation of web browsers. 2:58 15 years is quite a lot of time so 3:01 you might encounter some terms or solutions that are no longer relevant. 3:05 Now that we have a brief understanding of the components, 3:09 let's talk about the current state of Selenium right after this quick break. 3:11