Allow webdriver to attach to a running browser

[lukeis]

Originally reported on Google Code with ID 18

It should be possible to attach webdriver to a running browser instance.

Reported by simon.m.stewart on 2009-12-01 15:25:41

[lukeis]

To me it would be even more useful to be able to attach webdriver to an existing
window (e.g. in a popup opened from another page). I'll still had my vote on this issue.

Reported by bdoncieu on 2010-05-05 10:32:20

[lukeis]

Reported by jari.bakken on 2010-06-17 00:07:44

• Labels added: Component-WebDriver

[lukeis]

I agree - ability to attach to existing session or better yet, switching between sessions
at will would be of great use.

Reported by piotr.dudala on 2010-06-23 09:17:16

[lukeis]

This feature will help us a lot on unit testing and debugging on the code for a particular
page.

Reported by duyongze on 2010-07-22 13:46:00

[lukeis]

Ya I definitely need this too.

Reported by brettcsykes on 2010-07-22 13:49:37

[lukeis]

agree can someone get this added :)

Reported by taswar on 2010-07-22 13:54:45

[lukeis]

I'll add my 2cents and say I really could use this as well.  I have a browser page that
acts as a menu to kick of various reports and other functions. I'd like my test suite
to start the browser and go to the menu page. From there each test case/class tests
a report. But I'd like to also run the tests ad hoc, running each test from the menu
page without starting/stopping the browser each time.

Reported by sosha@trnswrks.com on 2010-08-16 15:13:35

[lukeis]

I also really need this capability. I am trying to port an existing test suite from
Watir. I have tests that look for the presense of popups as well as test their content.
Being able to attach to another window is essential and will allow me to upgrade to
the watir webdriver api.

Reported by leonashleydavis on 2010-08-29 00:33:40

[lukeis]

leonashleydavis: That sounds like a different use case. Although it's not exposed in
watir-webdriver (yet), you can access the underlying Driver instance and use its API
to switch between windows, e.g.:

>> b = Watir::Browser.new :firefox
=> #<Watir::Browser:0xf10318 url="about:blank" title="">
>> b.driver.window_handle
=> "{f5da02dc-6c66-481e-85b4-6aea9973b44c}"
>> b.driver.window_handles
=> ["{f5da02dc-6c66-481e-85b4-6aea9973b44c}", "{2d99ce5c-b4c9-4ec0-8edc-7ec59ba10cd0}"]
>> b.driver.switch_to.window("{2d99ce5c-b4c9-4ec0-8edc-7ec59ba10cd0}")
=> "d74e5e46-7c4c-42db-979b-d5f80ed5c6b3"
>> b.driver.window_handle
=> "{2d99ce5c-b4c9-4ec0-8edc-7ec59ba10cd0}"
>> 

If you have suggestions for what a Watir API for this should look like, please comment
on this issue: http://github.com/jarib/watir-webdriver/issues/issue/34

Reported by jari.bakken on 2010-08-29 11:41:51