Selenium RC and Internet Explorer

Question

I am trying to create a fully-automated test suite for a web application, using Selenium RC and test cases written in Java. However, I have encountered a few problems that I have not been able to solve. Please let me know if you have a suggestion about any of these issues.

1. Single window mode. I would like to run single window mode because I think it will provide a significant performance improvement, and probably solve problem 2. I am able to run my test cases in single window mode with Firefox and everything works as expected, with much faster execution. However, I have not been able to get my test cases to execute when using single window mode with Internet Explorer; button clicks do not work at all, so the tests fail due to the browser never advancing to the next screen. The exact same test case executes fine in multi-window Internet Explorer. Is there some kind of trick I can use to get this working?

2. When running in multi-window mode, if there is an error in the test, or if the user exits the Selenium GUI window, the browser never closes. I know that it is possible to get the process id and kill it, but this seems rather dangerous, especially if the user is running multiple instances of the browser. This is part of the reason that I would like to use single window mode, if possible. Is there some other way, possibly by handling the window close event for the Selenium GUI, to solve this?

3. I am unable to use the waitForPageToLoad command in any of my test scripts because it will never recognize that the page has loaded and resume execution. I think this is because the pages use Javascript, but I am not sure; I don't have too much experience in webpage development. Right now, I am using the wait command and specifying the amount of time to wait. However, this is very unreliable, sometimes if the Internet connection is slow, my tests fail because the wait times are not long enough. Other times the tests are excessively slow, due to long wait times. Any ideas for how to handle this problem?

Thank you! I appreciate any answers or suggestions you can give. Please let me know if you would like some more information.

Answer 1

For multi widow close issue, you need to handle the exceptions. Call the close function in the finally block will resolve the window close issue.

For Page refresh, you need to check that manually and call in correct places. Usually clicking on links will cause page refresh before showing next screen.

Answer 2

1. Have you tried IE HTA mode? When I used to mess with this stuff it was the only reliable way to run tests on IE.

2. Not sure

3. You need to use the wait class. In essence you make an action then poll on an element which isn't present yet but you know will be when its safe to continue with the test. So you only ever wait the minimum time needed.

Answer 3

Edit -- shouldn't have been posted