Selenium IDE is a standalone 3rd party tool for creating Selenium test cases. These test cases can be imported as script files into ASM and used within Browser Checks to collect performance metrics for the scenario. In some cases, users must make changes to their Selenium IDE script before it can be used within ASM as a Scenario. This article explains how ASM handles Selenium IDE scripts so you can easily understand how to convert your scripts into Scenarios.

Supported Selenium IDE Commands

Use the following table as a reference when determining whether a certain Selenium IDE command is compatible with your ASM Scenario.

Usage Assertion Modes

In order to assert a command within Selenium IDE, you can use the assert, verify, or waitFor commands; the assert command will stop the Selenium IDE script if the expected condition is not met, while the verify command will log an error message but not stop the script. ASM scenarios, by contrast, treat the assert and verify commands the same way - if the expected condition is not met, both commands will result in a failure of the scenario.

By contrast, the behavior of the waitFor command is the same within Selenium IDE and ASM Scenarios. Within both tools, the waitFor command will wait for a specified element and will result in a script failure if the element is not found within the specified timeframe. The default timeframe is 30 seconds and can be changed with “setTimeout”.

Custom ASM Commands

ASM supports several commands which are not utilized in native Selenium IDE: insertPageBreak, takeScreenshot, and getDictionary.

insertPageBreak

ASM scenarios support a custom command called insertPageBreak. This command creates a new Page Break that separates different pages (which typically consist of multiple URL calls) from each other. The command expects one argument, the name/title of the page break, which will be shown on the Result Details page in ASM. Page breaks can be entered manually into scripts or automatically generated when recording web sessions. For example, If the login portion of a web page sequence takes place over two or three HTML pages, the Page break could organize the set of HTML pages into a single group before the next logical page navigation - another Page Break. insertPageBreak is typically only necessary if you need to set a custom title or if requests which are triggered as a result of executing multiple different commands all end up as part of the same step, and you wish to split these requests into multiple steps.

takeScreenshot

The command takeScreenshot takes a screenshot that will be visible in the Check Details. The command will insert an additional screenshot onto the page in addition to whatever screenshots have been added in the Edit Check settings. This command is helpful when troubleshooting scripts as it gives a snapshot of what exactly happens at a particular step.

getDictionary

See Storing and Retrieving Information Using the ASM Dictionary.

Limitations of Selenium IDE within ASM Scenarios

Key Codes

When using sendKeys in Selenium IDE, the key codes ${KEY_ENTER}, ${KEY_SHIFT}, and ${KEY_LEFT} are not valid commands within Selenium IDE. Instead use keyPress with the respective ASCII values for the key you want to be pressed. For example, if you want to press Enter within an application, use the command keyPress and the value \13.

JavaScript Execution

WebDriver’s JavascriptExecutor will wrap all JS and evaluate it as an anonymous expression. This means that you need to use the “return” keyword:

browserbot.getCurrentWindow().document.title

becomes

return document.title;

The same is true when evaluation expressions using storeEval or assertEval:

Selenium IDE

\{\{${stored_var} > 0\}\}

WebDriver

\{\{return ${stored_var} > 0\}\}

Note that there are multiple commands that will result in javascript evaluation: gotoIf, assertEval, getEval, and storeEval.

Key Strokes

If you need to simulate a keypress input event, such as pressing the enter key, you must use keyPress or keyPressAndWait (if the keystroke triggers a new page load), with the ASCII as an argument. For example: Press enter key and wait for new page load

Return Required

ASM Scenario commands which execute JavaScript snippets expect a returned value. The following commands result in javascript evaluation/expect a javascript snippet as argument, which must include the 'return' keyword at the start of the expression within the “Target” field:

GotoIf

RunScript

RunScriptAndWait

GetEval

StoreEval

StoreExpression

Type & sendKeys

Even though the type command works in most cases, Apica strongly recommends using sendKeys instead of type. The type command edits the HTML format of the code, while the sendKeys command attempts to simulate actual typing and is therefore able to trigger javascript code in fields.

Incrementing a Stored Numeric Value

It is currently not possible to change the value of a variable from within a JavaScript snippet. This Selenium IDE code will change the value of $counter:

The following command will not change the value of $counter: