WebDriver

TLDR; Selenium WebDriver Course course has been released to YouTube as a 16 hour video. And split into 8 smaller 1-4 hour video chunks

TLDR; Record and Playback is a notoriously bad way to automate. But what if we record, then have AI write code from the recording? Answer: it is a little better.

TLDR; OpenCode is a free and easy to use AI coding agent, it can be coupled with free models and MCP servers to create test automation code quickly and easily.

TLDR; a simple WebDriver Test is not production ready code, but when we refactor it to use JUnit effectively, add some Page Objects, Abstraction and a little bit of Synchronization and we have all the makings of quality execution code.

I generally caution against ‘Helper’ classes and Static Helper classes when I’m consulting. SlowLoadableComponent isLoaded methods can be very ugly but are a good example of where helper classes can help, and in particular fluent helper classes.

I can see why people find it hard to work with WebDriver, particularly people new to the tool. Over the years I have learned to expect almost constant change from the ecosystem within which I automate with WebDriver (Browsers, Drivers, WebDriver, Java, JUnit). After all, the ongoing betterment of web automating worldwide must continue.

TLDR; Getting started with programming is the hardest part. Installing the IDE, adding dependencies, writing your first test. Pick whichever language you have someone to help you with, or you have a tutorial to work through. Switching languages when you know one is not too hard so do not worry about being stuck with a language, focus on getting started.

TLDR; Downloading a file with RestAssured is as simple as taking the body of a request as a byte array and writing it to a file.

When automating I often have to download files. One very common FAQ for WebDriver is “How do I download a file with WebDriver?”.

TLDR; Don’t rule out headless browsers like HTMLUnit, just because no-one uses them in the real world. They might make automating your task easier and faster.

TLDR; split code across lines and breakpoint, and use browser dev tools to test the locators used.