Building an amazing web app is essential for testers to keep up with the increasing demands of user expectations. Test automation helps testers deliver bug-free applications faster within shorter timelines and with optimal quality.
There are many testing tools and frameworks available that testers use to perform automation testing on both web applications and native mobile applications and WebdriverIO is one such testing framework that helps testers plug their tests directly into their favorite browsers so they can identify issues in the application before going live.
In this article, we will delve into getting the potential of WebdriverIO most out of WebdriverIO for test automation, guiding through the core elements of WebdriverIO, how it works, what its benefits, and why testers use WebdriverIO for test automation.
What is WebdriverIO?
WebdriverIO is an end-to-end automation testing framework written in JavaScript and built on the robust foundation of Node.js. It is designed to simplify modern web application testing, empowering testers to effortlessly automate browser actions and interact with web elements. WebdriverIO can also automate native mobile applications through emulation, simulation, or on an actual device.
In addition, its user-friendly interface and support for multiple programming languages make it an excellent choice, especially for beginners in the realm of test automation.
WebdriverIO is an independent implementation that can run both Selenium WebDriver communication protocol and Chrome Devtools protocol, making it efficient for both Webdriver-based cross-browser testing and Chromium-based automation.
The tests written using WebdriverIO are simple, concise, and highly readable, as it allows controlling browsers with just a few lines of code, ensuring efficient and effective testing of web applications across various browsers and platforms.
The vast NodeJS community helps the framework remain stable and grow globally with new capabilities. The huge variety of built-in plugins allows you to easily integrate and extend the setup to fulfill the requirements. For all these reasons, testers have made WebdriverIO to fulfill their browser testing needs.
Architecture of WebdriverIO
WebdriverIO follows a client-server architecture, where the client acts as a test runner and the server represents the browser or browser driver instance. The WebdriverIO architecture consists of various components working together to facilitate the automation of web applications. They are-
Test runner- It executes the test scripts written in WebdriverIO, and provides an interface to configure, manage, and organize the test execution process effectively. Various test runners that WebdriverIO supports are Mocha and Jasmine, enabling you to structure.
WebdriverIO client- It is a JavaScript library that bridges between the test scripts and the browser or browser driver instance by communicating and translating the test commands into WebDriver protocol actions. Its rich set of APIs and commands allows interaction with web elements, performing actions, and making assertions.
WebDriver Protocol- It is a standardized protocol for browser automation that defines a set of commands and responses that allow the test scripts to interact with the browser like clicking on elements, entering text, navigating through pages, and validating element properties.
Browser or Browser Driver- It represents the actual browser instance where the tests are executed. WebdriverIO uses the browser driver, such as ChromeDriver or GeckoDriver, to establish a connection with the browser and control its behavior. The browser driver interacts with the test scripts and the browser, by translating the WebDriver protocol commands into browser-specific actions.
How does Webdriver work?
Built on NodeJS, WebdriverIO is an implementation of the JSON Wire Protocol. When a developer writes a test script using WebdriverIO, the framework interprets the JavaScript test code, issues the corresponding WebDriver protocol commands specifies a set of HTTP endpoints for triggering actions in a web browser like specific URL navigation or clicking on an element on a webpage.
This ensures that each browser like Firefox or Chromium that’s used for testing runs those commands in its code to expose the HTTP endpoints described in the standard, to test the validity of the application functions, and then evaluates the outcome of the commands to determine whether the test has succeeded or failed.
Why use WebdriverIO for test automation?
WebdriverIO is commonly used because of its ability to test native mobile applications for iOS-enabled devices. To harness the full potential of WebdriverIO for automation testing, it’s essential to get familiarized with its core concepts and APIs.
WebdriverIO offers great convenience for QAs by providing intuitive syntax and fluent APIs to write concise, readable, and maintainable test scripts. It has a comprehensive set of commands that empower developers to build expressive and reliable tests that interact with elements like form fields, click buttons, perform other essential user actions, and validate the expected outcomes. These commands help in simulating user interactions, verifying application expected behavior, and ensuring the correctness of the tests.
Popular testing frameworks like Mocha or Jasmine seamlessly integrate with WebdriverIO, providing testers the flexibility to choose from these frameworks with a structured and organized approach to test development and execution. Additionally, testers can leverage its powerful test suites, test runners, and assertion library features to enhance the readability and maintainability of the test code.
Additionally, WebdriverIO offers a wide range of assertions for validating the expected behavior of the web application. These assertions enable testers to check for specific text, verify the element’s visibility, compare attributes, and perform other validations essential for robust testing, promoting efficient collaboration among team members and facilitating the quick identification and resolution of issues during the testing process.
Top features in WebdriverIO
WebdriverIO is a powerful framework for test automation. It has a rich feature set, making it an ideal choice for efficient and effective web application testing. Some key Features of WebdriverIO are-
- Can be used to automate tests both for web applications as well as native mobile apps.
- Simple and easy to get started.
- Integration of tests with third-party tools such as Appium.
- Wdio setup wizard’ to make the setup simple and easy.
- Integrated test runner.
- Provide command line shortcuts to quickly test scripts by executing them in multiple environment configurations.
- Allows users to easily mock web resources and spies in their tests using custom responses, reducing the testing time of individual scenarios.
- Features such as page objects, custom commands, and hooks, to build scalable and maintainable test suites.
- Diverse selectors and auto-waiting mechanism to cover common user interactions.
- Carries multiple reporters like Junit, Allure, Spec, HTML, Video, JSON, and custom reporting as per testers convenience.
Benefits of test automation with WebdriverIO
Below are some of the benefits of WebdriverIO making it stand out from other frameworks.
Easy extensibility
WebdriverIO is easily extendable, enabling developers to quickly add helper functions or build more complicated sets of existing commands and even the ability to create custom commands.
The framework also provides a large distribution of both community-created and built-in plugins that can be easily integrated to fulfill the testing requirements. Apart from supporting the WebDriver protocol, and Chromium DevTools protocol, it also supports protocols from the popular mobile testing framework Appium. All these enable developers to use WebdriverIO across many projects with varying requirements.
Flexible reporting in Allure
Allure has become the de facto choice for test result reporting. It produces HTML files with resources for building a nice interactive dashboard interface. WebdriverIO provides reports in various formats, including HTML, PDF, and XML in customized layouts.
These reports provide a wealth of information including screen captures, test status, execution time, shows end to end videos of test runs, and environment details.
Allure enables testers to track the status of tests over time, as well as provide overall results to stakeholders, allowing them to identify trends and problems with the test suite.
Front-end accessibility
WebdriverIO is built in JavaScript, making it ideal for most web testers and web developers, who work with JavaScript codebases. Test cases written using WebdriverIO are easily readable, written, and debugged in teams where everyone works on JavaScript code daily.
Integration with popular testing frameworks
WebdriverIO is a flexible and modular framework that allows effective structuring of the tests. It provides integrations with the most common development frameworks, including Mocha, Cucumber, and Jasmine. This integration allows testers to leverage the features and capabilities of these frameworks, like organizing tests, reporting, and parallel test execution.
Integration with commonly used CI/CD tools
WebdriverIO provides support to run tests on containerized instances in Docker as well as integrate with the CI/CD pipeline. It supports various CI tools like CircleCI, Jenkins, Travis CI, CircleCI, and GitHub actions, enabling automation of the testing process and ensuring consistent and reliable test execution.
WebDriver protocol setting the bar
With the WebDriver wire protocol at its core, WebdriverIO has an industry-leading robust platform of tools that allows for browser automation. With this testers get the ability to use the best-quality browser automation drivers without the struggle of having to write Java-based tests. There are drivers for WebDriver protocol for all major browsers, which means WebDriverIO has the same cross-compatibility.
Open-source
Often cost becomes the limiting factor in choosing a test automation tool. WebdriverIO is an open-source framework with a focus on the JavaScript/ TypeScript ecosystem. It’s owned by the non-profit organization OpenJSFoundation, which commences the growth of this platform and keeps it up-to-date.
Extensive documentation and community support
WebdriverIO framework has flexibility in development and is primarily shaped by a vast and active community as a whole. It has a large user base and also a community channel that offers extensive documentation, tutorials, and support to help users learn from, troubleshoot issues, and stay up-to-date with the latest trends and test automation best practices. This rich knowledge base provides resources and supports each other to get started quickly.
Cross-browser compatibility
WebdriverIO is based on Web Standards, allows writing tests that can be executed across multiple browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Internet Explorer, and Safari, and ensures consistent behavior across platforms. Thus guaranteeing a true cross-browser testing experience with all major browsers
Multiple language support
Using WebdriverIO, developers can write test scripts in multiple programming languages, including JavaScript, TypeScript, and more. This flexibility enables them to leverage their existing coding skills and preferences.
Rich API and commands
The WebdriverIO framework’s comprehensive set of APIs and commands makes web elements interaction, simulation of user actions, and validation of application behavior easy. Its intuitive syntax and explicit APIs enhance code reusability, readability, and maintainability and the overall test development process.
Utilizing the cloud platform for WebDriverIO test automation
Test automation is crucial for testers to keep up with the growing demands of faster delivery and optimal application quality. Automation using WebDriverIO allows testers to achieve this, resulting in creating better applications in shorter durations.
WebdriverIO can be used locally, as well as can be easily integrated with a cloud platform like LambdaTest. This allows QA to expand the capabilities of the framework by leveraging the additional functions of the platform such as generating test reports, recording tests, capturing screenshots, using real devices and browsers on the cloud, and integrating with popular tools like Selenium, a widely used automation framework for web applications.
Integrating WebdriverIO with Selenium on LambdaTest offers a robust solution for web test automation. LambdaTest is an AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform that allows running of WebdriverIO scripts both manual and automated tests at scale. Utilizing this platform, testers also get to perform both real-time and automation testing on a cloud Selenium Grid of more than 3000 environments, real mobile devices, and browsers online, ensuring comprehensive coverage and browser compatibility.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that, in terms of speed and technology WebdriverIO is considered as the best choice of framework. It provides a flexible and modular framework that allows structuring tests effectively. Its various supporting features are page objects, custom commands, and hooks, which empower testers to build scalable and maintainable test suites. Using the WebdriverIO framework, testers can logically organize their tests, and improve code reusability, and the overall test development process.