Selenium 2 .NET Bindings And How We Can Use Them

Selenium 2 is one of the most anticipated updates to a testing framework in a very long time. The next version of Selenium will see the Selenium and WebDriver code bases merged. It will allow developers to be able to switch between Selenium and WebDriver without having to change your tests.

"So what" you might be thinking? Well, Selenium and WebDriver have their strengths and in a number of places they are in opposite places. For Example, Selenium works on every browser that supports javascript where WebDriver requires a driver for each browser.

The merge, destined for use by Selenium Remote Control and WebDriver users, will allow developers to write developer centric tests tests in their favourite language. So how does it do this at the moment? The Selenium and WebDriver developers have created an uber-jar that houses both the WebDriver and Selenium API's. Developers create their tests as normal and call the same server for both Selenium and WebDriver.

I am sure that you are still going "So what?".


Ever had a situation where you tried to use the down arrow in your Selenium test to only start pulling your hair out! This means if you use the WebDriver backed Selenium, you will be able to get around any issues what Selenium Remote Control may get stuck on. E.g. The most common issue is when trying to do keypresses, Selenium will synthesize the keypress using JavaScript where WebDriver will send through keypresses at the OS level.
We will also be able to create more intuitive tests since WebDriver allows people to create objects in their tests for each object on the page by using WebElements like this : - WebElement elementOnPage = driver.FindElement(By.Name("idOnPage")) and then use it like with typing elementOnPage.SendKeys("Text")

The .NET Bindings have a lot of potential and Jim Evans and the rest of the Selenium-WebDriver Developers are doing a brilliant job! Keep up the work guys!

So to get some people going with the .NET bindings I have created some tutorials:

• C#/NUnit Tutorial
• IronPython Tutorial
• IronRuby Tutorial

Once I get around a few Remote WebDriver issues with the .NET Bindings I hope to put up tutorials on how to use them.