Selenium

After a few weeks with our heads in the clouds (and above) we came back down to Earth and put our hands in the dirt.  We decided to take on the task of learning Selenium, an automated web application testing framework.  There were two main benefits to learning this framework.  First, when it comes time for CESWP to go into testing we’ll already be familiar with Selenium so we can write our tests quickly and effectively.  Second, we began creating tests for our sister project CSSDP.  This gives the CSSDP team a head start on their testing and us some real world experience with the framework.

So far our work with Selenium has been largely positive.  After installing the Selenium IDE you get an integrated development environment (IDE) in the Firefox web browser.  You use this IDE to record the actions you take in the browser, such as clicking on a link or typing text into a field.  With the IDE you also verify that the web pages the browser visits are correct (e.g. this page has the phrase “Space Science Data Portal”, that page has a link to Data Availability, etc.).  Once your actions and verifications are recorded as a test you can play them back automatically as often as necessary.

The ultimate goal of writing a number of tests like this is to be able to easily and quickly tell if changes made to one area of a web application have broken something in another area of the web application.  After a software developer makes a change to the application they will automatically run all of the Selenium tests.  If any of the tests fail, the developer must go back and fix what was broken.  If all of the tests are successful, the developer’s job is done!