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Selenium Simplified - Automated Web Testing with Java and Selenium RC

The first edition of the book has been published.

Paperback available from:

• Lulu at only £19.99 + postage and packaging.
• amazon.com
• amazon.co.uk

The price of the e-book is £5.99. When you buy the e-book you can download the first edition and the work in progress second edition, the second edition includes updates to explain the Selenium RC API with Selenium 2.x releases. NOTE: If you are in the UK or EU then the transaction will be subject to additional VAT charges as the UK government have decreed that e-books should have VAT charged.

• What is "Selenium Simplified"?
• Can I try before I buy?
• Does it work with Selenium 2?
• What will I learn?
• Why this book?
• About the Author: Alan Richardson
• Free Downloads
• Buy Now
• Ebook Purchase Process FAQ
• Errata

New book and e-book on Web Test Automation with Selenium & Java, now Available - only £5.99. NOTE: If you are in the UK or EU then the transaction will be subject to additional VAT charges as the UK government have decreed that e-books should have VAT charged.
[Read a preview on Scribd]  [Read preview in googledocs]

Note: this e-book is a downloadable pdf file. Buying the e-book means that you can download the pdf file. You will not receive a hard copy version of the book as well. A paperback version of the book is available to purchase separately. When you purchase you can immediately download the first edition and will be emailed details explaining how to download the updated version.

Or buy the paperback: from Lulu at only £19.99 + postage and packaging or amazon.com or amazon.co.uk

What is "Selenium Simplified"?

The first edition of "Selenium Simplified", a tutorial guide to Selenium RC in Java has been published. It is a tutorial based book, so it has plenty of screenshots and walks you through the learning process. You can get a good idea of the content and writing style by reviewing one of the previews above. This is a 70+ page preview containing the first 6 chapters and a few later ones. The preview alone should help you get started with Selenium-RC.

The book contains 347, A4 sized, pages split into 38 chapters, jam packed full of Selenium tutorial goodness. It is bursting at the seams with a desire to get the reader quickly and easily doing test automation in Java with Selenium.

Can I try before I buy?

You can read a preview for free online now:

• Read a preview on Scribd
• Read preview in googledocs

Does it work with Selenium 2?

Selenium Simplified teaches the Selenium RC API. This API is perfect for people who want to get started with Selenium and is still used by many companies for their automation. The Selenium RC API is present in Selenium 2.0.

I wrote about the changes you will need to make as you work through the book in this blog post. There were very few changes required. The new Selenium 2.0 downloads are very backwardly compatible for the approach taken in Selenium Simplified.

When you purchase the e-book you can immediately download the first edition and will be emailed details explaining how to download the updated version to work with the Selenium 2.x versions.

What will I learn?

The book takes you right through the following (see the full table of contents here):

• Installing the tools: Firefox, Eclipse, Java, Selenium, Firebug, Selenium-IDE, JUnit
• Creating your first test using the IDE
• Converting the IDE scripts to Java
• Understanding the JUnit SeleneseTestCase class
• Using the SeleneseTestCase class to take screenshots
• Using Selenium without the SeleneseTestCase class
• How to read the Selenium source code, and why you would want to
• Refactoring your test methods
• Understanding and using XPath Selectors
• CSS Selectors
• Automatically starting the Selenium Server from your tests
• Selenium commands for simple HTML testing
• Selenium commands for testing HTML Forms
• Selenium commands for testing JavaScript enabled pages
• Running tests outside Eclipse using Ant
• Integrating the automated tests into Continuous Integration
• Running tests under multiple browsers
• Refactor tests into page object models
• Data Driven Testing in JUnit
• Capturing Screenshots on test failure
• Cookie Handling
• More on JavaScript enabled web applications
• How to move your tests to Selenium 2.0 using the Selenium Backed WebDrivers
• How to structure your tests, code, data and page object models
• JUnit suites
• Running your tests on multiple browsers using Ant and Hudson
• Creating custom base classes to make your test writing easier
• Making your tests run fast by re-using Selenium sessions
• Integrating your tests with Subversion
• You can download the example code used in the book
• The book describes a complete production ready test project, you can download the code for this and can use it as a basis for your own test projects

I assume no previous experience with Java, or programming, or automated web testing. So I use a lot of screenshots and code examples to explain clearly what is going on.

By the time you finish this book you will be able to write tests on your own, and will have enough information to easily read and understand the various tutorials out there on the web and follow the official documentation.

I don't waste any time in this book by explaining what test automation is, or why you should do it. There is no fluff. "Selenium Simplified" is geared towards helping the reader learn how to automate web tests.

This book was released early as part of a beta programme to get feedback from real users about what they actually need. The comments I received from the readers in the Beta programme were great. This book has already taken people who couldn't code to the point where they are writing pretty advanced test suites in Java.

Why this book?

• When I started writing this the Selenium documentation was not very good. The official documentation has improved massively, but still doesn't target the beginner audience that I target in this book. I wrote this to act as a supplement to the official documentation so that when you finish this book you can read and understand the official documentation easily. If you don't buy this book, then at least read the official selenium documentation to learn about Selenium-RC.
• I interview a lot of testers. And it has been hard to recruit good testers with Selenium experience. I speak to so many people who get stuck at the IDE and don't progress further. I speak to so many testers who could get benefits from using automation but don't think they can understand the 'technical' aspects. And there was nowhere I could direct those testers so they could learn. I wrote this book so that those testers can read through this tutorial, work through it at their own pace, and learn to automate web tests.
• When I started writing this there were no good training courses on Selenium. Now there are. But they cost upwards of £400. For many people that cost is a bit off putting, so by creating an affordable tutorial book there are more options in how people approach the learning of this tool.

I honestly wrote this because I want to see more testers with the technical skills to incorporate automation into their test processes. And I know that it can seem daunting before you start. But automation is actually pretty simple. And I hope that by working through this tutorial, anyone can pick up the basics and start doing automated web testing.

About the Author: Alan Richardson

I've been doing testing my entire professional career - knocking on 18 years now. And over that time I've done a lot of automation, in a lot of different tools. I've also done a lot of programming in a lot of different languages.

At work, we use Selenium for our automation. We use Selenium because it is open source, and it is very actively maintained. Selenium has been adopted and improved by Google so it has a great future.

I write the tests in Java because I work on applications that are written in Java so I can have the developers help me whenever I get stuck. But Java has fantastic free IDE support (as you'll see if you read "Selenium Simplified")

I have been helping the testers that work in my team improve their automation and Selenium skills. This text is a result of the learning I have made while doing that.

Free Downloads

• Table of Contents
• Source code (InitialSeleniumTests_JUNIT.zip)
• Refactored Source code (finalChapterSource.zip)
• Bonus Chapter removed from the main text - IE Developer Toolbar Usage

Sourcecode updated to work with Selenium 2

• Source code (InitialSeleniumTests_JUNIT_2ndEdition.zip)
• Refactored Source code (finalChapterSource_2ndEdition.zip)

Buy Now

New e-book on Automated Testing with Selenium, now Available - only £5.99.

• Read a preview on Scribd
• Read preview in googledocs
• Buy the e-book now through our secure vendor
• Buy paperback: from Lulu at only £19.99 + postage and packaging. or amazon.com or amazon.co.uk

Ebook Purchase Process

The ebook purchase process is organised through e-junkie, a very good and reputable online sales facility. All communication is conducted via email. Emails should be sent as soon as your purchase completes. The process is described below.

• Select the country you are shopping from and enter your postcode.
• If you are in the UK or EU then when you select your country and press update cart, VAT will be added on the shopping cart.
• When you purchase the book, choose the Checkout option on the sales page - do not click 'continue'
• You will be sent two emails. One from Compendium Developments and one from e-junkie, both should have a download link on the e-junkie server to download the e-book
• You will be manually added to the Selenium Simplified mailing list, and the Compendium Developments 'download again' facility. You will then be emailed details explaining how to download the updated version.
• If you encounter any problems during the purchasing process please check your spam folder for the emails, and if the emails have not arrived then write an email to alan@compendiumdev.co.uk and I will resolve your problem.

Errata

I wrote about the changes you will need to make as you work through the book in Selenium 2 this blog post. There were very few changes required. The new Selenium 2 downloads are very backwardly compatible for the approach taken in Selenium Simplified.

Version @ 20/01/2011 and previous

Google Changes

Google has changed since the book was written, so some of the Google tests no longer work. If you encounter a test with Google which does not work then change the test as follows, instead of:

• selenium = new DefaultSelenium("localhost", 4444, "*firefox", "http://www.google.com");

use:

• selenium = new DefaultSelenium("localhost", 4444, "*firefox", "http://www.compendiumdev.co.uk");

Similarly for the open command, instead of:

• selenium.open("http://www.google.com");

use:

• selenium.open("selenium/search.php");

Typos

• remove the spare 'selenium' at the end of the listing on page 198
• On page 9 while I state that the steps are supported by "screen hots" I really mean "screenshots" or "screen shots"

CSS Selectors

on page 155 I state that "the items will be returned the order listed", I was mistaken. The order the items get returned can not be guaranteed so the examples using .getText presented may not work on later versions of Selenium or later browsers.