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GWT bindings for Selenium WebDriver.

Browser testing in GWT

GwtDriver brings GWT support to WebDriver tests. We do this by exposing a few type details from the running application and letting the tests ask questions of the structure of the widgets, rather than forcing them to rely on just the DOM structure, CSS classes, or element IDs. This way, you can write the application and the tests separatly, without either becoming dependent on the structure and expectations of the other.

When you test a screen in an application, you usually don't look at the DOM structure and locate an element with the right ID or XPATH before you click it, but instead rely on the text content or other nearby (usually parent or sibling) widgets. The gwt-driver project tries to encourage WebDriver tests that are structure and landmark based. This has the result of writing tests that are more easily maintained, and easier to refactor and reuse as the application continues to grow.

Concept

The basic idea is to refer to models that describe the widgets in the application, rather that the dom elements themselves. It is still possible (and often necessary) to refer to those elements, but for the most part this is only needed for specific one-off features that don't make sense to build into the models themselves.

Models all extend from org.senchalabs.gwt.gwtdriver.models.GwtWidget. They have a few paths from there:

• Decorated with org.senchalabs.gwt.gwtdriver.models.GwtWidget.ForWidget, indicating the gwt Widget type that they should represent. Useful for various assertions.
• Specify a GwtWidgetFinder in their generics, describing the common ways that this widget can be found in a parent. More on this below in Finders.

Locating Widgets

Finders

Window loginDialog = GwtWidget.find(Window.class, driver)
    .withHeading("log in").done();

loginDialog.find(Button.class).withText("Register").done().click();

Using findElement and GwtWidget.as

// Find the HorizontalLayoutContainer elements
WebElement hlcElement = driver.findElement(
    new FasterByChained(By.xpath(".//div/*"), new ByWidget(driver,
        com.sencha.gxt.widget.core.client.container.HorizontalLayoutContainer.class)));

// Find the VerticalLayoutContainer elements in HorizontalLayoutContainer
List<WebElement> vlcElements = hlcElement.findElements(
    new FasterByChained(By.xpath("//div"), new ByWidget(driver,
        com.sencha.gxt.widget.core.client.container.VerticalLayoutContainer.class)));

// Find the left widgets in the VerticalLayoutContainer element
WidgetContainer leftWidgets = new WidgetContainer(driver, vlcElements.get(0));
List<GwtWidget<?>> leftButtons = leftWidgets.findWidgets(By.xpath(".//div"));

// Find the button widget
Button lb = leftButtons.get(0).as(Button.class);

Interacting with Widgets

As each GwtWidget model has an internal reference to the WebElement it is based on, interacting with the widget is usually about as simple as interacting with that element. Typically, each GwtWidget should provide some basic methods for interaction, but inevitably there will be the need to provide extra functionality - you can invoke getElement() to get the root element in the widget.

Building your own models

If you've developed your own widgets, you will need to build your own widget models and finders based on the structure you expect your widgets to be used in and how you expect to need to search for them. The gxt-driver project includes a number of models and finders that can serve as a basic example of how to find and interact with widgets in a running application.