Designing Effective Page Objects in Selenium WebDriver

Designing Effective Page Objects in Selenium WebDriver

16 July 2024 Stephan Petzl Leave a comment QA

Using the Selenium WebDriver framework can significantly enhance your web automation testing. However, designing effective Page Objects can be challenging. This guide will help you understand the best practices for creating robust and maintainable Page Objects.

Key Considerations for Page Objects

  • URL Association: It’s generally not necessary to associate URLs with all Page Objects. Instead, keep the Page Objects user-centric and focus on the elements the user interacts with.
  • Fields in Page Objects: Apart from WebElements and WebDriver instances, consider including utility methods and state management. Avoid storing WebElements across operations to maintain fresh state.
  • Initialization: Use constructors or factory methods for initializing Page Objects. The PageFactory class provided by WebDriver can be beneficial for static element initialization.
  • Navigation Responsibility: Delegate the responsibility of navigation to external forces or utility classes rather than embedding it within Page Objects.

Practical Implementation Tips

Below are some practical suggestions based on real-world implementations:

Using Custom PageFactory

Implementing a custom PageFactory can help manage timeouts and complex object initialization efficiently. This approach can make your test code more fluent and maintainable.

WidgetObjects for Common Themes

WidgetObjects, which are PageObjects with a parent reference, can be useful for representing common themes across different pages. This helps in reusing code and maintaining consistency.

JavaScript Snippets Management

Store JavaScript snippets in discrete files and read them into a Map at startup. This practice is more maintainable than writing escaped JavaScript code within your source files.

Example Code

Here’s an example demonstrating a fluent interface for creating and navigating through Page Objects:


    public ViewAssemblyPage createAssembly(String title, String type, 
            String description, Date dueDate, int numParts) {

        AssemblyPage assy = login("JoeCoder", "foopass")
            .createRecord()
            .assembly(type)
            .formInput(title, description, dueDate);

        return assy.getTable()
            .openPartsPicker()
            .findParts(type)
            .selectSomeParts(numParts)
            .submitSelection();
    }
    

Conclusion

By following these guidelines, you can design effective and maintainable Page Objects in Selenium WebDriver. Ensure that your Page Objects are user-centric, avoid unnecessary URL associations, and delegate navigation responsibilities appropriately.

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For more detailed guides and documentation, visit our documentation section.

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