Automating CodedUI with Visual Studio, TFS and Selenium - Part 2

Selenium, CodedUI & Visual Studio – Part 2

Right, so in Part 1, we did the configuration for recording the Selenium web tests using FireFox Selenium extension and NUnits. In this part, we are going to record a web test without using the CodedUI functionality of Visual Studio. So let's start by recording a test first. I am going to take a simple example of web test by recording my log-in in Gmail and then run the test again to verify it is working.

Open FireFox, go to tools and click Selenium IDE. In Selenium IDE, click on Action on menu and make sure Record button is ticked. Now, follow the below steps:-

1. Navigate to Firefox address bar and type - https://gmail.com and press enter.
2. Gmail page will show up, click on Sign In link
3. Enter the username and password in the fields and click Sign In
4. On successful sign in, go back to Selenium IDE, click Actions and Click Record. Make sure, it is unchecked now.

Now, you have recorded your web test. In order to test this, sign out from Gmail but don't close the browser. Post sign out, go back to Selenium IDE and click on play button and that will run your sign-in process again. If you are happy with your test, we are ready to export this test and integrate with Visual Studio.

Click on File -> Export Test Case As as shown below:-

Now, we are going to export this test in C# but we can either do it as WebDriver or Remote Control. WebDriver is basically now Selenium 2 or a newer and better version of Selenium since RC. There are couple of issues of annoying features about RC which are fixed in WebDriver. So export this test as C# NUnit WebDriver and save it on your machine.

We have a recorded test in C# and now we want this test to run in Visual Studio so that it can be integrated with our normal automated builds. Here how we are going to do it:-

1. Open Visual Studio, create any test project in C# and add unit test project to it. (Create unit test project and not codedUI project as we wish to demonstrate that this process doesn't require Premium version of VS.)
2. Right click on test project and Add ->Existing Item and select the exported file from Selenium
3. Rebuild the solution. You might end up with thousand errors as it is missing import DLLs and assemblies.
4. Now, let's get the required assemblies. Right click on the project and click "Manage Nuget" and search for Selenium Webdriver in search. Install the first search result.
5. And the final piece of the JigSaw, NUnit test adapter Nuget package.

Rebuild the project again and now you should have no errors. It is not full proof and depending on your recording, you might have to fix few more things but would just be resolving DLLs.

You have a working test now. Go to test explorer, right click on your test and click Run. Visual Studio will playback your test. Enjoy!!