Selenium - 'player piano' testing tool for web applications

   Selenium is an open source, automated testing tool for web
applications. It allows you to write automation scripts that 'drive'
your browser to perform a sequence of actions within your web app -
such as entering text into fields, and clicking links and buttons -
and can then verify the results against what you expected to happen.

   Selenium works with several modern, JavaScript-enabled Web
browsers, such as recent versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer for
Windows, Firefox, Mozilla, and Safari for Windows, Mac OS X, and
Linux.

   As noted on its website <http://www.openqa.org/selenium/>, Selenium
can be used to automate the testing of your web apps that you might
now do manually - and tediously, with greater probability of fatigue
and error. Two of Selenium's primary uses are:

> * Browser compatibility testing. Test your application to see
>if it works correctly on different browsers and operating systems.
>...
>
> * System functional testing. Create regression tests [which
>perform a specified set of actions on your application and check the
>results, to ensure that your application's functionality hasn't
>"broken" after making changes - Aron] to verify application
>functionality and user acceptance.

   One easy way to get started using Selenium is through Selenium IDE,
an integrated development environment that lets you start building
automated test scripts by simply recording your actions:

   http://www.openqa.org/selenium-ide/

   Selenium IDE is implemented as an extension for the Firefox web
browser. It is a standalone product which doesn't require any
changes to your web server or applications.

   Another tool, WATIR <http://wtr.rubyforge.org/>, uses scripts
written in the Ruby language to perform similar types of tests, by
'driving' Microsoft Internet Explorer for Windows.

   Finally, these slightly older articles from the Webnet archive
mention other programming and scripting tools you can use to simulate
user actions on your web applications and to check the results of
those actions:

   http://ls.berkeley.edu/mail/webnet/2004/0268.html
   http://ls.berkeley.edu/mail/webnet/2004/0269.html

Aron Roberts
Workstation Software Support Group

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Received on Fri Feb 10 15:10:02 2006