Elevate Your UI Testing with Selenide by Andrei Solntsev | Testμ 2024

Thank you for the Insightful session:-

Automating mobile apps and web apps involves distinct challenges due to their different environments.

Mobile Apps:

  1. Device Fragmentation: Mobile apps must be tested across diverse devices and OS versions, complicating automation due to varying screen sizes and hardware.
  2. Touch Interactions: Automation requires handling touch gestures like swipes and pinches, which adds complexity compared to mouse and keyboard interactions.
  3. App State Management: Mobile automation must manage different app states (foreground, background) and interruptions, increasing the complexity.
  4. Testing Environments: While emulators are used, real-device testing is often necessary to capture hardware-specific issues.

Web Apps:

  1. Browser Variability: Web apps require testing across various browsers and versions, leading to inconsistencies in rendering and behavior.
  2. Responsive Design: Automation must address multiple screen sizes and resolutions, especially for responsive designs, necessitating extensive test coverage.
  3. DOM Changes: Frequent updates to web apps can alter the DOM structure, potentially breaking existing test scripts.
  4. Cross-Browser Testing: Ensuring compatibility across browsers introduces complexity with different browser-specific behaviors.

In essence, mobile app automation is more complex due to device diversity and touch interactions, while web app automation faces challenges related to browser variability and responsive design. Both require tailored strategies to effectively manage their unique difficulties.

@LambdaTest Thank you for the thoughtful session Here is the Answer that I think to the Question

For beginners starting with Selenide, I recommend focusing on these key tips:

  1. Understand Selenide Basics: Familiarize yourself with the core concepts of Selenide, such as how it simplifies interactions with web elements and manages browser sessions.
  2. Leverage the Documentation: Utilize Selenide’s comprehensive documentation. It provides valuable examples and best practices that can accelerate your learning process.
  3. Start Simple: Begin by writing straightforward tests to get comfortable with Selenide’s syntax and functionalities. Gradually introduce more complex scenarios as you gain confidence.
  4. Utilize Page Objects: Implement the Page Object Model to create reusable and maintainable test code. This approach helps in organizing test elements and actions efficiently.
  5. Practice Best Practices: Follow testing best practices like maintaining clear test cases, using assertions effectively, and ensuring your tests are robust and reliable.
  6. Join the Community: Engage with the Selenide community and forums for support, tips, and to stay updated with the latest features and updates.

By starting with these foundational steps, you’ll build a strong base for writing effective automated tests with Selenide.

Here is your answer to the Question

To set up Selenide for automating tests in a Java project, follow these steps:

  1. Add Selenide Dependency: Include the Selenide dependency in your pom.xml file if you are using Maven:

    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.codeborne</groupId>
        <artifactId>selenide</artifactId>
        <version>6.14.2</version>
    </dependency>
    

    For Gradle, add this to your build.gradle:

    testImplementation 'com.codeborne:selenide:6.14.2'
    
  2. Configure Browser Settings: Selenide defaults to Chrome, but you can configure other browsers. For example, to use Firefox:

    import com.codeborne.selenide.Configuration;
    
    public class TestSetup {
        public static void setup() {
            Configuration.browser = "firefox";
            Configuration.startMaximized = true;
            Configuration.timeout = 10000; // timeout in milliseconds
        }
    }
    
  3. Write Test Cases: Create a test class and write your test cases using Selenide’s fluent API:

    import static com.codeborne.selenide.Selenide.*;
    
    public class MyTests {
        @BeforeEach
        public void setUp() {
            open("https://example.com");
        }
    
        @Test
        public void testExample() {
            $("h1").shouldHave(text("Example Domain"));
        }
    }
    
  4. Run Your Tests: Run your tests using your preferred test runner, such as JUnit or TestNG. For JUnit, make sure you have the JUnit dependency:

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.junit.jupiter</groupId>
        <artifactId>junit-jupiter-api</artifactId>
        <version>5.8.1</version>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
    
  5. Review and Enhance: Review the test results, adjust configurations as needed, and enhance your tests by utilizing Selenide’s advanced features like PageObject pattern and custom configurations.

By following these steps, you can efficiently set up Selenide for your Java-based UI automation tests.

No, Selenide is not an IDE. It is an open-source framework for UI testing that simplifies the use of Selenium WebDriver. Selenide provides a more readable and less verbose API for writing tests, offering features like automatic waits and a concise syntax to enhance the efficiency of test creation and maintenance. Unlike an IDE, which is a development environment for writing and debugging code, Selenide is specifically designed to improve and streamline UI testing processes.

Thank you @LambdaTest for the Information session

Certainly! Here’s a concise and informative Answer to the question:


To get started with Selenide, you can follow these steps:

  1. Introduction & Setup: Begin by visiting the Selenide official documentation for a comprehensive introduction and setup guide. This will cover the basics of Selenide, its features, and how to integrate it with your project.

  2. Installation: Add Selenide to your project by including it in your build tool configuration. For Maven, add the following dependency to your pom.xml:

    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.codeborne</groupId>
        <artifactId>selenide</artifactId>
        <version>6.14.0</version> <!-- Check for the latest version -->
    </dependency>
    

    For Gradle, add this to your build.gradle:

    testImplementation 'com.codeborne:selenide:6.14.0' // Check for the latest version
    
  3. Configuration: Set up your Selenide configuration by creating a configuration file or setting properties in your test code. This includes specifying the browser, browser size, and other preferences.

  4. Writing Tests: Start writing your tests using Selenide’s simple and fluent API. You can refer to the Selenide examples on GitHub for sample code and best practices.

  5. Resources: For additional help, explore Selenide’s FAQ and Community Forum to get answers and support from other users.

These steps should help you get up and running with Selenide for effective UI testing. If you have any specific questions or need further assistance, feel free to ask in the community!


This answer provides a clear and structured guide to getting started with Selenide, ensuring users have the resources they need to begin using the tool effectively.

Thank you for the Amazing session, Here is the Answer that I think

Selenide excels in handling dynamic content and AJAX by automatically managing waiting for elements and conditions, which is crucial in modern web applications. Unlike traditional approaches, where you must manually specify wait conditions, Selenide integrates an implicit “smart wait” feature. This ensures that the test waits until the element is ready before interacting with it, whether it’s due to AJAX updates or other dynamic behaviors. For example, you can simply call .should(Condition.visible) or .shouldHave(Condition.text(...)) and Selenide will continuously check the state of the element until it meets the expected condition or a timeout occurs. This eliminates the hassle of writing explicit waits, making your tests cleaner and more resilient to timing issues caused by AJAX.

Thank you @LambdaTest for the testmu

Answer:- To write efficient tests with Selenide, consider the following best practices:

  • Use concise assertions: Selenide’s API allows you to write human-readable assertions like element.shouldBe(visible) or element.shouldHave(text("expectedText")). This keeps tests clean and easy to understand.
  • Leverage reusable components: Create reusable page object components to avoid duplication. This makes tests easier to maintain and scales well across larger applications.
  • Enable automatic screenshots and reports: Selenide supports automatic screenshot capture on failure, along with reports. Enabling these features will help with debugging and tracking test progress.
  • Limit unnecessary interactions: Reduce the number of clicks, navigations, or reloads within tests. If a test does not need to interact with certain elements, avoid it. This minimizes test execution time.
  • Use assertions only when needed: Avoid placing assertions in places where they don’t serve a purpose. Focus on testing critical paths and keep your tests focused on specific functionality.

Here is your answer:-

When testing native applications using a BDD framework, the best approach involves the following steps:

  • Leverage Cucumber with tools like Appium: For native apps, combining Cucumber (for the BDD aspect) with Appium (for cross-platform mobile testing) works well. You can write your scenarios in plain English in .feature files and map those to Appium interactions.
  • Structure your tests using Gherkin syntax: Focus on crafting readable, business-oriented scenarios in the Given-When-Then format. This ensures that both technical and non-technical stakeholders can follow and understand the test cases.
  • Abstract the logic: Ensure that the step definitions are written in a way that abstracts the technical complexities, keeping the business logic separate from the automation code. This leads to more maintainable and scalable tests.
  • Incorporate Selenide where possible: If your native app includes web views, you can also use Selenide to handle those parts, ensuring uniformity in test structure and execution.

These insights should help in understanding Selenide’s capabilities and provide practical steps for improving test automation workflows.

From my point of view the answer will be:-

Selenide excels in making UI testing simple and stable for both web and mobile applications by offering concise, readable syntax. Key features include automatic waiting, which eliminates the need to handle waits manually, built-in screenshots, and reporting capabilities. Its ability to handle file downloads, manage browser states, and support parallel testing ensures efficiency in cross-platform environments. Selenide also integrates seamlessly with mobile testing tools like Appium, making it a unified choice for both mobile and web test automation.

While Andrei didn’t specify an exact number for code coverage, a general industry best practice is aiming for around 70-80% coverage. This ensures you’re covering most critical paths without chasing 100%, which could lead to diminishing returns. The focus should be on writing meaningful tests that ensure quality and stability, particularly in UI scenarios, rather than just hitting coverage metrics.

From my point of view here is the answer

Selenide is designed to make test automation accessible to testers with basic coding skills. A good understanding of Java and test automation fundamentals is sufficient to start writing tests in Selenide. Since Selenide abstracts away many complexities (e.g., handling waits, browser management), it reduces the amount of boilerplate code and allows testers to focus on writing clear, concise, and stable tests.

Thanks Andreiw for the Amazing session, Here is the Answer,

Yes, Selenide has built-in mechanisms that inherently provide stability and resilience, but it doesn’t have what you would traditionally call “auto healing.” Instead, it handles dynamic elements quite gracefully through automatic waits. Selenide waits for elements to appear, disappear, or change states, ensuring that tests don’t fail due to timing issues or minor page changes. While this isn’t auto healing in the strict sense, it significantly reduces flaky tests by handling changes in the UI in a reliable way.

Here is your answer

Yes, one of the main advantages of Selenide is its focus on simplifying test scripts. During the session, Andrei emphasized that Selenide is designed to make your tests concise, readable, and less complex. Here are a few key practices he discussed:

  • Chained commands: Selenide allows for chaining multiple actions in a single line, reducing verbosity.
  • Built-in waits: Automatic waits remove the need for explicit waiting conditions, keeping the code clean.
  • Fluent API: Selenide’s API is intuitive and fluent, enabling you to write tests in a way that closely mimics natural language, reducing the need for long, complicated method names.
  • Screenshots and reports: Selenide includes screenshots and reports automatically, so you don’t need to manually write extra code to capture them.

These features combine to drastically cut down on the complexity of test automation scripts while ensuring stability and readability.

Thank you for Insightful session, By Following this steps you can setup Selenide for automating tests in a Java project

  1. Create a Java Project:

    • Use an IDE like IntelliJ IDEA or Eclipse to create a new Java project.
  2. Add Selenide Dependency:

    • If you’re using Maven, add the following dependency to your pom.xml:
      <dependency>
          <groupId>com.codeborne</groupId>
          <artifactId>selenide</artifactId>
          <version>6.15.2</version> <!-- Check for the latest version -->
      </dependency>
      
    • For Gradle, add this to your build.gradle:
      dependencies {
          implementation 'com.codeborne:selenide:6.15.2' // Check for the latest version
      }
      
  3. Set Up WebDriver:

    • Selenide automatically manages WebDriver dependencies. However, ensure that you have a compatible browser driver (e.g., ChromeDriver for Chrome) in your system’s PATH.
  4. Create Your Test Class:

    • Write your test cases using JUnit or TestNG. For example:
      import com.codeborne.selenide.Selenide;
      import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;
      
      import static com.codeborne.selenide.Selenide.*;
      
      public class MySelenideTest {
          @Test
          public void testGoogleSearch() {
              open("https://www.google.com");
              $("input[name='q']").setValue("Selenide").pressEnter();
              $("h3").shouldHave(text("Selenide: Concise UI Tests in Java"));
          }
      }
      
  5. Configure Settings (Optional):

    • You can customize settings like timeouts and browser configuration using:
      Configuration.timeout = 10000; // Set global timeout
      Configuration.browser = "chrome"; // Specify browser
      
  6. Run Your Tests:

    • Execute your test class using your IDE or build tool (Maven/Gradle).
  7. View Reports:

    • Selenide generates reports and screenshots by default. Check the build/reports/tests/test directory for results.

By following these steps, you’ll have Selenide set up and ready for automating UI tests in your Java project!

As a Tester I think Automating mobile apps is generally more complex than web apps due to:

  1. Environment Setup: Mobile requires configurations for various devices and OS, while web apps can run across browsers with less setup.
  2. UI Variability: Mobile UIs differ significantly by device, complicating scripts; web UIs are more standardized.
  3. Gestures: Mobile automation involves touch gestures, adding complexity, whereas web interactions are mostly clicks and keyboard inputs.
  4. Performance Factors: Mobile performance varies by network and device capabilities; web apps typically run in more controlled environments.
  5. Tool Availability: Mobile has fewer established frameworks compared to the wide variety available for web automation.

In summary, mobile automation is more challenging due to device diversity and interaction complexity.