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What is Selenium?

3:15 with Craig Dennis and Nathan Menge

In this video we will cover the components that constitute the Selenium project:

Further Reading

A brief history of the Selenium project
Selenium History

Selenium Components

  • Selenium Remote Control
  • Selenium Server
  • Selenium IDE
  • Selenium Webdriver
  • Selenium Grid
  • 0:00

    Selenium is a set of tools that automates browsers, and that's really it.

  • 0:04

    You can wield that power however you'd like.

  • 0:06

    The most common use case is to take that power and use it for testing.

  • 0:09

    But it for sure isn't limited at just that.

  • 0:11

    If you have any sort of repetitive task but

  • 0:13

    that perform in a web app, you can have Selenium do that for you.

  • 0:17

    Selenium has been around for over 15 years.

  • 0:20

    It's evolved and been a lot of things over time.

  • 0:22

    And therefore,

  • 0:23

    we believe that it's important that you understand its history, just a bit.

  • 0:27

    Let's take a minute to discuss the different components that make up

  • 0:30

    Selenium.

  • 0:31

    Selenium Remote Control.

  • 0:33

    The very first version of Selenium require a tool called Selenium RC,

  • 0:37

    which stands for remote control.

  • 0:40

    The tool worked by opening up a web page that installed

  • 0:42

    a core JavaScript library that could receive commands.

  • 0:46

    That page would then open the web page under test and then interact and

  • 0:50

    send information back.

  • 0:52

    However, this was limited due to the scope of JavaScript's reach and it made

  • 0:56

    some things impossible, like working with file upload controls or native pop ups.

  • 1:01

    Selenium Server.

  • 1:03

    Selenium Server is a companion piece to Selenium RC.

  • 1:06

    It allows remote machines to connect to the server,

  • 1:09

    which then can be used to control or drive the browser on various server hardware.

  • 1:15

    This enables Selenium-based test code on multiple machines,

  • 1:18

    with potentially different configurations of operating systems, browsers,

  • 1:22

    browser versions, plugins and any number of other possible variations.

  • 1:27

    Selenium IDE.

  • 1:29

    Selenium IDE, or integrated development environment,

  • 1:32

    is a plugin in Mozilla Firefox that allows you to record your actions on a page and

  • 1:37

    then play them back.

  • 1:39

    It produces commands that are understood by Selenium RC.

  • 1:42

    It can be used to document defects and it can be used to record exploratory testing.

  • 1:47

    But it is definitely not suited for the large scale automated web testing.

  • 1:52

    Now, it's outdated now and support seems pretty limited, so tread with caution.

  • 1:57

    Selenium WebDriver.

  • 1:59

    Selenium WebDriver is also known as Selenium 2.0.

  • 2:01

    It is the result of the merging of an open source project, which was named WebDriver.

  • 2:07

    It was created by a Google engineer who was an admirer of the Selenium project,

  • 2:12

    but needed to get around those JavaScript limitations.

  • 2:15

    What it does is to create the ability to directly program interactions with

  • 2:19

    the browser, instead of interacting with the browser's JavaScript sandbox.

  • 2:23

    The merge kept the mature API inherited from Selenium RC.

  • 2:28

    We'll explore this more here in a bit.

  • 2:30

    Selenium Grid.

  • 2:32

    Selenium Grid is a smart proxy server that allows for

  • 2:35

    communicating with a cluster of machines.

  • 2:38

    This allows for parallel execution of tests.

  • 2:41

    It also enables tests to be run against environments

  • 2:44

    with a variety of specific configurations.

  • 2:46

    It has been used commercially by companies to offer test execution environments

  • 2:50

    as a service.

  • 2:51

    More in the teacher's notes.

  • 2:53

    So you can think of Selenium as an umbrella project for a range of tools and

  • 2:58

    libraries that enable and support the automation of web browsers.

  • 3:01

    15 years is quite a lot of time so

  • 3:05

    you might encounter some terms or solutions that are no longer relevant.

  • 3:09

    Now that we have a brief understanding of the components,

  • 3:11

    let's talk about the current state of Selenium right after this quick break.

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