Selenium 4 Has Been Released!

 Let's talk about the release of Selenium 4 in this article. The alpha, beta, and release candidate stages of the software product life cycle are generally acknowledged practises. The programme "Selenium 4" is ready for production release after the release candidate. That indicates that there were no catastrophic bugs after numerous verifications. There were a total of 7 Alphas, 4 Betas, and 3 Release Candidates for Selenium Automation Testing.

The Selenium Release Date has been officially postponed from April 2019! The eagerly anticipated wait is now over. Selenium 4 has arrived with some helpful upgrades. You will learn about the family of Selenium 4 releases by the article's conclusion.

 

Summary of Contents

Silver IDE

Selenium Grid

Selenium WebDriver

Video of Selenium 4

 

With the introduction of Selenium 4, various new features have been included. Network interception and the option to use basic or digest authentication to authenticate on a website are some of the features.

Interception of network traffic is a technique used to monitor what is happening on the network. We can obtain HTTP Status Codes and change HTTP flow using Selenium 4.

When a client sends a request to the server using HTTP, basic authentication is the HTTP authentication mechanism used.

An HTTP authentication technique called digest authentication is intended to be more secure than a simple authentication. The client uses an algorithm to build a hash rather than sending the login or password.

 

Silver IDE

The activities we perform on a website are recorded by Selenium IDE and then replayed. The extension was only accessible on Firefox before Selenium 4. With the updated version, Firefox and Chrome users can record and replay their actions.

The Backup Element Selectors, Control Flows, and the Command Line Runner, or CLI runner, are among the new Selenium IDE features. Additionally, there are plans to release Selenium IDE as an Electron app. We can use the Debugging Protocol and listen for events from the browser thanks to the Electron app.

 

Silver Grid

We can remotely run Test Scripts on physical or virtual machines using Selenium Grid. We direct client commands to distant browser instances. The advantage allows Test Scripts to execute concurrently on many computers, browsers, and OS systems.

The Grid now has a new functionality that makes use of a sophisticated architecture and multiple components thanks to Selenium 4. Client, Router, Session Queue, Distributor, Session Map, Node, and Event Bus are some of the parts. Additionally, a new method of querying and obtaining data has been added: GraphQL. A screenshot of the Grid Components taken from the Selenium website is shown here.

The process begins with the Router waiting for a client session request. The Router forwards each request to the appropriate component after receiving it. If the request is fresh, the Router and Session Queue start corresponding. If the request is not brand-new, then the Router and Session Map are in contact. A new session is added to the session queue by the router, who then waits for a response. First In First Out (FIFO) order governs the scheduling of all of the sessions in the session queue.

The first matching request from the New Session Queue must be made by the Distributor. The Distributor tries to start a new session if a spot opens up in the New Session Queue. The information is sent to the New Session Queue after it looks for an acceptable Node to create a session on.

There may be several Nodes, and each Node has the ability to relay commands through a particular configuration or run sessions in Docker containers. Each Node manages browser slots.

All of the running machine's accessible browser drivers are automatically registered by the Node by default. Chrome, Edge, and Firefox all have different CPUs than Safari and Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer and Safari are given a single slot each. However, Firefox and Chromium-based browsers are given one slot per available CPU (Chrome and Edge).

The Session Map contains data about the Node and the Session ID. The Session Map receives a Session ID from the Router. The Session Map then returns the related Node to the Router. When launching the Selenium 4 Grid in its fully distributed configuration, the Event Bus should come first. As a mediator between the Nodes, Distributor, Session Queue, and Session Map, it has this responsibility. Selenium 4 Grid utilises messages to facilitate internal communication. Consequently, the Grid avoids exorbitant HTTP calls.

 

Selenium WebDriver

 

Architecture

The W3C WebDriver Protocol, which was developed by Simon Stewart, the inventor of Selenium WebDriver, is the primary justification for upgrading to Selenium 4. It has at least three benefits:

·         WebDriver Protocol by the W3C offers specifications.

·         The W3C WebDriver Protocol offers consistency.

·         Updated Actions API from the W3C WebDriver Protocol is offered, and it comes with enhanced resources.

The JSON Wire Protocol was a part of the Selenium 3 architecture. Information flow from the client to the server was the goal of JSON Wire Protocol. Sending and receiving HTTP Requests and HTTP Responses enabled the processing of the data over HTTP.

The JSON Wire Protocol has been dropped from the new design with Selenium 4. The Selenium Client & WebDriver Language Bindings and Browser Drivers can now communicate with each other directly.

 

Associated Locators

Friendly Locators were once known as Relative Locators. To locate an element or elements above(), below(), close(), toLeftOf(), and toRight() another element, Selenium 4 has 5 Relative Locators.

A Relative Locator can be used to locate a list of elements. ListWebElement> and the findElements() method are the only components of the Selenium statement. The Addons Library for TestProject is seen in the screenshot and code excerpt below.

An Addon is a group of programmed Automation Actions that we can utilise to enhance and expand built-in functionality. The snippet of code demonstrates how our Test Script may combine various relative locators to locate all platforms (Android, iOS, and Web).

 

Open a New Window or Tab

With Selenium 4, we may simultaneously launch a new window and a new tab within the same session. We can work in the window or tab after it has been opened without installing a new driver. Automation engineers value this feature and have requested it. The attention is automatically switched to the newly created window or tab by the newWindow() method.

 

Take screenshots of the full page or WebElement

It was possible to capture a screenshot of a page using Selenium 3. It did not, however, have a method for taking a screenshot of a whole page or a specific WebElement. The application's complete page, including the footer, is captured using the full page screenshot capability. It occurs whether we can view the entire page or not.

 

DevTools Protocol for Chrome (CDP)

A new API feature created specifically for debuggers is called the CDP. Chrome DevTools Protocol or Chrome Debugging Protocol is referred to by the acronym CDP. The debugging protocol for Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome is open to us. Both browsers have a Developer Tools feature and are based on the Chromium platform. However, we also have Console, Sources, Network, Performance, Memory Application, and Security. Elements is the most common automation tab. If we right-click a page and select Inspect, the identical window appears.

ChromiumDriver is a class that has numerous Selenium 4 methods. But there are two ways to manage Developer Tools in Chrome and Edge. ExecuteCdpCommand() and getDevTools are those two methods (). By providing an argument for that command, the executeCdpCommand function enables us to execute a Chrome DevTool Protocol command directly. DevTools are returned by the method getDevTools. Here is a summary of the tasks we can complete with CDP:

 

Console Logs to View

Ignore a Certificate Error with Mock Geolocation, Slow Down Our Internet, And Take The Network Offline

 

Video of Selenium 4

 

Conclusion

Automation is bound to rule production activities in the future. It is held to propel efficiency as well as guarantee ROI. Given so, Selenium Automated Testing is bound to remain the tool of choice. It may have its own disadvantages; however, its benefits overshadow other tools, predominantly in three specific areas: cost, flexibility and parallel testing.