How to Pick the Right Test Automation Tool for Selenium 4 Automation Testing

Automation testing is the process of carrying out quality assurance tests using automated software testing tools. It’s an excellent answer for teams that see a lot of the same things, whether they’re doing unit testing, integration testing, or functional testing. There are many online courses available from various centres like Selenium Training In Chennai where you can accredit the skills required to work with the Selenium tool for automating the test processing. 

Several QA teams have seen that automation has increased the value of their QA testing by allowing them to cover more procedures. QA testers can focus on exploratory and regression testing as a result of a well-chosen tool selection, while automation testing handles the challenging, time-consuming test cases.

Test automation tools are responsible for generating repeatable, reliable test results at any stage of the development cycle. When you properly use a test automation tool, you can validate the quality of your product every time you ship code or make an infrastructure change with minimal manual intervention.

Before considering and adopting automated software testing technologies, make sure your QA team would benefit from them. You’ll know what selection criteria to apply when making an automation testing tools list.

Testing with Selenium 4

WebDriver has undergone extensive changes under the hood to ensure full compliance with W3C standards. API requests can now be transmitted directly between browsers and test scripts, rather than having to be encoded and decoded via the JSON wire protocol as in Selenium 3 and prior versions. The WebDriver can now communicate directly with the browser they’ve chosen.

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Cross-browser testing is getting more robust as a result of standardization. The W3C standards, on the other hand, are compatible with the popular browsers ChromeDriver and GeckoDriver, thus existing users should be unaffected.

Selenium Grid’s earlier versions were more limited in terms of scale and more complex to set up. Docker has been integrated into the latest Selenium Grid version. To spin up containers, the developer or tester doesn’t have to establish large virtual machines. Furthermore, it was created so that QAs can use Kubernetes for improved scalability.

The requirement for nodes and hubs to start independently has been removed, making Selenium Grid maintenance easier and more convenient.

Must-Have Selenium 4 Automation Testing Tool Features

Several professionals are looking forward to Selenium 4 because of its improved Grid and the Selenium community.

  • The Selenium Grid Has Been Optimised and Improved

Distributed testing is carried out through Selenium Grid, which employs hub-and-spoke technology. Both the Hub and the Nodes must be started individually to perform the automated tests. It would no longer be necessary because the hub and node would be packed together in a single jar file. In this situation, the server will function as both a node and a hub.

You could test the Distributor, Session Map, and Router processes when Selenium Grid was first released. A Distributor, Node, Router, and Session Map are included in the system, which provides for enhanced traceability and scalability.

Grid users will be able to communicate with the Grid using a new protocol called HTTPS, which will also support IPV6 addresses. The updated Selenium Grid may be configured using TOML (Tom’s Obvious, Minimal Language)-based configuration, which allows it to be configured in a human-readable language.

The Grid interface in Selenium 4 has been improved. Thanks to Docker, Selenium Grid 4 may now run on VMs; it was previously incompatible with Windows. Users can deploy the Selenium Grid to Kubernetes, giving them the flexibility to choose the best deployment approach for their purposes. Selenium Grid 4 now supports more tools in addition to AWS and Azure, which is important for DevOps.

  • Improvements for Selenium IDE

Selenium IDE is a simple, turn-key solution that is web-ready and runs in its native state, and it is highly familiar to engineers who are used to record and replay automated tests. As a Firefox extension, Selenium IDE did not provide enough interesting features.

Selenium 4 may now be used on major browsers such as Firefox and Chrome due to the Selenium IDE’s integration with them. On the Microsoft Edge Store, a Selenium IDE plugin (or web extension) will be available soon.

Selenium IDE can assist you in creating better tests by adding the if-else, while, and other controls flow mechanisms. Selenium 4 includes a sleek and easy-to-use Selenium IDE, and also the ability to run side projects on Node.js. To perform cross-browser tests simultaneously, you can use Selenium grids either on-premises or in the cloud.

The backup element locator approach is utilized when the provided element locator refuses to locate the web element. Direct execution of tests is simple with the Selenium IDE. This assures their stability and reliability.

Testing automation can be recorded and exported using the Selenium IDE in any of the official language bindings, including Python, .NET, Java, C#, and JavaScript. Testing black-box software is useful for Selenium beginners and testers who want to get into automation. You may quickly configure the SIDE runner’s configuration files for parallel testing by using the Selenium IDE (in .yml format).

The Selenium IDE’s rewriting to become an Electron app, allowing it to be used as a standalone program, is one of the most notable developments. If test recording was tightly tied to the browser, it would be possible to listen for events occurring within the browser, making it more feature-rich and powerful.

  • Relational Identifiers

Selenium 3 didn’t have a simple (or particular) way of finding WebElements in the context of other elements. Relative Selenium locators, which locate WebElements depending on their visual position in respect to other DOM components, are a new feature of Selenium 4 Alpha.

Local locators, also known as friendly locators, are used to position web elements close to, to the left of, to the right of, above, or below another element. The relative locator methods in Selenium 4 Java and Python provide a named argument (in Selenium 4) and a with_tag_name argument (in Selenium 4).

  • Chrome’s Developer Tools

Chrome DevTools are supported natively in Selenium 4 (Alpha) via the ‘DevTools’ interface. Chrome is the only browser that works with Chrome DevTool. These tools can be used to acquire Chrome Development attributes such as Network, Performance, Fetch, Application Cache, Profiler, and so on.

Chrome DevTools is a set of web development tools that QA engineers and developers may use to identify and change problem pages on the fly. Websites perform more quickly and efficiently with these tools.

Chrome’s DevTools APIs can be used to simulate network conditions and geolocation.

One of Selenium 4 Alpha’s most intriguing additions is native support for Chrome DevTools Protocol, which will speed up website development with features like geolocation testing and simulating varied network situations.

  • The Protocol for debugging Chrome Provides Support

The Chrome DevTools Protocol is available to Selenium 4 developers. Profiler, Performance, Fetch, Network, Application cache, and other Chrome development settings are now available to quality assurance teams. QA teams may utilize Chrome DevTools APIs to simulate bad network connections and execute geolocation tests, among other things. APIs like these allow developers and quality analysts to rapidly and easily test and resolve severe flaws on individual web pages.

Finding The Best Selenium 4 Automation Testing Tool

This straightforward technique will teach you how to choose the best automation tool for your project.

1st Step: Make certain you fully comprehend your project’s requirements.

For a project to succeed, the quality of an application must be maintained by delivering a bug-free product. Through automated testing, the quality of a project can be improved, and also the depth and scope of testing. Before beginning the project, it is critical to understand the project needs, like the type of project (mobile/desktop/web), scope, and the existing team’s competency in the code language. As a general rule, there is nothing like a good or terrible tool; the ROI of a tool is determined by the requirements, i.e., how many test cases and at what level does one need to automate?

After a thorough study of the project objectives, the consulting team found both manual and automation testing were necessary to test the web, mobile, and desktop applications in our scenario. As a result, they required a product that could seamlessly interact with their test management and project planning tools while also being simple to understand and use.

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2nd Step: Test Automation Tools Must Be Compared to Your Existing Test Automation Tools

Depending on the Selenium Test Automation Tool, you assess and choose the appropriate automation tool for their project. To generate necessary Selenium 4 compatibility, you can utilize a compatibility package like the LambdaTest automation testing tool.

When examining different tools, it’s critical to understand the Selenium Web Driver framework’s benefits and drawbacks.

Selenium, a free, open-source tool, can be used to test web apps and web pages. The record-playback tool can be used to create and record playback test scripts. It supports Java, JavaScript, C#, Ruby, Node.js, and Python however it does not give adequate customer assistance.

Selenium is frequently used by testing teams who are familiar with coding approaches and who test web apps through the user interface. It would be impractical for a single tester for maintaining both automated and manual tests using Selenium. Selenium may also necessitate the hiring of a full-time developer.

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3rd Step: Identify the Project’s Key Criteria

There are numerous aspects to consider when selecting an automation solution. Here are some of the primary criteria we considered for determining which tool was the best.

  • Simple Build and scripts maintenance: Script maintenance and development should be as easy as feasible to save both human and time resources.
  • Effortlessly running the tests for non-technical users: Any project member must be able to execute the test suite whenever it is required. Furthermore, manual testers with little or no technical understanding must be able to utilize it without difficulty.
  • Mobile, desktop, and Web application test automation: Using three distinct tools for three different platforms to automate tests is a difficult undertaking. It’s preferable to pick a tool that works with all three platforms.
  • The management staff should be able to interpret the reports easily. As test reports create trust in management, they must be clear and easy to comprehend.
  • Cross-browser testing is required if there are numerous users and there are no browser constraints.
  • A Keyword-Driven Testing Framework: Data-driven testing is supplemented with keyword-driven testing. When projects get more complicated, test frameworks must be expanded.
  • When dealing with crucial project challenges, providing technical help to Automation Engineers is critical. Technical assistance and support tools would be beneficial.
  • Languages like Python, Java, C#, and others do not support recording test cases. The tester may need to write code on occasion. It would be useful to have a tool that supports a language needed to create custom scripts.
  • Using builds for Integrating DevOps functionality: Continuous Integration tools must be used to automate build and deployment.
  • Depending on the above qualities and project cost estimations, calculate the price difference between the other available automation options

Conclusion:

In the automation testing sector, several novel test automation approaches and technologies have been introduced. Selenium test automation technologies, on the other hand, have the benefit of being able to meet different testing requirements in one tool. The new Selenium 4.0 app will provide a better user experience and allow users to complete all tasks that were left unfinished in prior versions. This automation tool is quicker and more compatible than competing products.

 

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About the Author

jyoshna

Karna Jyoshna, Postgraduate in Marketing, Digital Marketing professional at HKR Trainings. I aspire to learn new things to grow professionally. My articles focus on the latest programming courses and E-Commerce trends. You can follow me on LinkedIn.
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