Advantage of web driver with selenium

What is WebDriver?

WebDriver uses a different underlying framework from Selenium’s java script Selenium-Core. It also provides an alternative API with functionality not supported in Selenium-RC. WebDriver does not depend on a java script core embedded within the browser; therefore it is able to avoid some long-running Selenium limitations.

WebDriver’s goal is to provide an API that establishes

• A well-designed standard programming interface for web-app testing. 
• Improved consistency between browsers.
• Additional functionality addressing testing problems not well-supported in Selenium 1.0.

The Selenium developers strive to continuously improve Selenium. Integrating WebDriver is another step in that process. The developers of Selenium and of WebDriver felt they could make significant gains for the Open Source test automation community be combining forces and merging their ideas and technologies. Integrating WebDriver into Selenium is the current result of those efforts.

When to Use WebDriver?

One should use WebDriver when requiring improved support for:

• Multi-browser testing including improved functionality for browsers not well-supported by Selenium-1.0.
• Handling multiple frames, multiple browser windows, popup, and alerts.
• Page navigation.
• Drag-and-drop.
• AJAX-based UI elements.
• Support for iPhone and android testing.
• Implementation of listeners - a much awaited feature.
• Better features for Ajax testing.
• You can easily simulate clicking on front and back button of browser.
• You can extract objects in bulk like QTP. For ex - extract all links of page. With RC this was a big hassle.
• Unlike RC you don’t have to start a server in WebDriver.
• You can simulate movement of a mouse using selenium.
• Tabs and pops are more or less the same. RC can also handle and WebDriver can also handle.
• You can find coordinates of any object using WebDriver.
• You have classes in WebDriver which help you to simulate key press events of keyboard.
• Keyword driven framework is very easy to build in WebDriver.

Getting Started with WebDriver (a Browser Automation Tool)

A few weeks ago during Pankaj B, Chirag S demonstrated using Web Driver to create functional tests in Java. It was a pretty cool demo and I meant to give it a whirl for a while, but only got around to doing it this weekend. I had to refer back to the recording of the session a number of times, so I thought it would be worthwhile to document the steps to get a project up and running in Eclipse that uses WebDriver. Let's start with some background.

What is Web Driver?

Web Driver is a tool that allows you to write code, in a number of languages, that automates a browser and allows you to interrogate what is rendered by the browser. You can use these features to created automated tests of a web application. You may be familiar with a tool called Selenium, which does similar things, but works within the context of a web browser itself. The Selenium project and the WebDriver project are merging to create Selenium 2.0. That project is a work in progress, but there's nothing to stop you from experimenting with Web Driver right now.

For a bit more of an official definition, here's some info from the Selenium 2.0 and Web Driver page at Selenium HQ:

Web Driver is a tool for automating testing web applications, and in particular to verify that they work as expected. It aims to provide a friendly API that's easy to explore and understand, which will help make your tests easier to read and maintain. It's not tied to any particular test framework, so it can be used equally well with JUnit, TestNG or from a plain old "main" method.

Web Driver uses a different underlying framework from Selenium's javascript Selenium-Core. It also provides an alternative API with functionality not supported in Selenium-RC. Web Driver does not depend on a javascript core embedded within the browser, therefore it is able to avoid some long-running Selenium limitations.

A well-designed standard programming interface for web-app testing.
-> Improved consistency between browsers.-> Additional functionality addressing testing problems not well-supported in Selenium 1.0.
-> Web Driver's goal is to provide an API that establishes

I hope to write a number of posts about working with Web Driver. This first post will be a quick guide to setting up an Eclipse project and getting Web Driver to interact with a web page. Let's get started.