March 2014 Summaries

Lo-Dash is a utility library for JavaScript that aims to provide consistency, customization, and performance. It has been tested on Sauce Labs' cloud platform using automated testing, which has significantly reduced the time required for testing from 2 days to just 30 minutes. The project's use of Open Sauce has helped build trust with its users and developers, and has enabled it to streamline its development process. With its upcoming v3.0 release, Lo-Dash is expected to introduce new features and changes, making it an exciting time for the project. For those interested in learning more about Lo-Dash or getting involved, they can visit lodash.com or github.com/lodash/lodash.

To effectively use Selenium for test automation, it's essential to tie together your current test suite with a Continuous Integration (CI) server, which automates testing as part of the development workflow. This allows for reliable and quick issue detection, ideally in sync with the development process. To achieve this, break up your test suite into small chunks, known as "test packs," and have separate jobs for each, keeping test runs fast and informative. Use a standard format, such as JUnit XML, to generate test output that can be used by the CI server. Set up a CI server job configuration, including setting up build triggers, configuring build steps, test reports, and notifications, to automate testing and view results. By following these principles, you'll be better equipped to start your Selenium journey on the right foot and avoid common pitfalls.

The Selenium Project has a long history of working with Sauce Labs, one of the first open source projects to test on their cloud. The project began by switching from Bamboo to Jenkins and then to Sauce for reliable testing, allowing them to run tests in parallel across multiple browser/OS configurations. This change greatly improved their testing process, enabling weekly releases and reducing manual testing. With access to log files and videos on the Sauce platform, the Selenium Project is able to test more efficiently and reduce flaky tests. The project's expertise has been invaluable in helping others improve their automated testing processes, offering tips such as keeping hermetic testing, not relying on external services, and thinking through browsers before testing. The Selenium Project continues to grow with new features and releases, including the upcoming release of Selenium 3, RCA APIs removal, and a W3C spec.

The Selenium Grid and Sauce Labs are key components in scaling Selenium tests. To start, you need to configure your test environment with specifics such as browser type and version, credentials, and operating system. This is achieved by setting environment variables like `base_url`, `host`, `operating_system`, `browser`, `browser_version`, `SAUCE_USERNAME`, and `SAUCE_ACCESS_KEY`. When running tests in the cloud using Sauce Labs, you need to require the `sauce_whisk` gem to get the pass/fail status of the job. You also need to add an action to your `spec_helper` file to set the job status based on the test result after each test execution. To speed up your tests, you can run them in parallel through a test runner or your Continuous Integration (CI) server.

The Sauce Labs plugin for Jenkins has limitations when integrating with MSTest, requiring finessing to work correctly. The plugin is designed for JUnit-like tests and does not support MSTest's reporting format out-of-the-box. To overcome this challenge, users can refer to Victor Pascual's detailed post and instructions on how to integrate Sauce Labs reports with Jenkins using MSTest. Additionally, other useful tips and tutorials are provided, including curating additional resources for testing and CI/CD processes.

In this chapter, we're discussing the importance of packaging our tests and page objects in a structured way to get the most out of them. We've set up a global setup and teardown process using a `spec_helper` file that removes Selenium library from our tests, making it easier to reuse. We've also created a central configuration file `config.rb` to store our base URL, which is configurable and can be overridden when running the test suite. Additionally, we've organized our folders into `spec` for tests and `pages` for page objects, updating require statements accordingly. With this setup, we can run all our tests using the new config file, ensuring a more efficient and maintainable testing process.

Our next online workshop, "Testing Behind a Firewall," will take place on March 11, 2014, at 11:00 AM Pacific Time. Speaker Mike Redman from Sauce will cover best practices and strategies for testing apps behind a firewall using Sauce Connect. The secure tunnel created by Sauce Connect ensures encrypted data transmission through industry-standard TLS. This latest version of Sauce Connect 4 allows tests to run faster with heavy loads, is more reliable, and supports a wider range of web standards, including Websockets. Mike will also lead a live Q&A session after the presentation.

This summary provides an overview of writing resilient test code using Selenium. The key points covered are the importance of using high-quality locators to write reliable tests, and how explicit waits can help overcome timing issues with dynamic pages. A page object is created to encapsulate the logic for a dynamic loading page, which includes methods to start the process, wait for the finish text to appear, and check if an element is displayed. The example demonstrates how to use this page object in tests to ensure that the test passes even when dealing with dynamic elements. By using explicit waits, the tests become more robust and can handle varying loading times without throwing exceptions.