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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.