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