Selenium - Handling Windows

Testing web application is always fun and if you are automating your web application testing with Selenium, its even more fun. Unfortunately, like any other tool selenium has few limitations. One of the most annoying limitation of selenium is its inability to handle browser windows (Or any other expected or unexpected windows). When we automate any application which launches these windows (For example security warning windows, certifications windows and so on), we get stuck by the inability of selenium to handle them. I have seen people executing those automated tests but clicking on OK/Yes/Continue manually whenever these windows appear. This defies the whole purpose of automation, because tests can not be executed without human intervention. Though it is not possible to solve this problem using Selenium (As far as I know), but we can certainly combine Selenium with other tools to solve it. One option is to use a small AutoIT script which will run in the background and wait for windows you are interested in. When that window / dialogue box appears AutoIT script will click on specific button or send required keystroke. If you are not familiar with AutoIT, here is the brief introduction from their site – AutoIt v3 is a freeware BASIC-like scripting language designed for automating the Windows GUI and general scripting. It uses a combination of simulated keystrokes, mouse movement and window/control manipulation in order to automate tasks in a way not possible or reliable with other languages (e.g. VBScript and SendKeys). You might have guessed that this is a windows only solution, but still its better than not having any solution at all :-). Once you have installed AutoIT, actual script is very simple – ; Alters the method that is used to match window titles during search operations. ; = Match the title from the start (default) ; = Match any substring in the title ; = Exact title match ; = Advanced mode, see Window Titles & Text (Advanced) ;1 to -4 = force lower case match according to other type of match. while(1) Opt("WinTitleMatchMode","1") ;Pauses execution of the script until the requested window exists. WinWait($CmdLine[1]);$CmdLine[1] is param 1 (after the script name) $title = WinGetTitle($CmdLine[1]) ; retrives whole window title WinActivate($title) ;Now click on Yes button to contibue running the script ControlClick($title,"","&Yes") ;Send(“{ENTER}”) WinClose($title) Wend When you launch this script from command line, it will continue to run in the background and whenever any window appears with the title you specified as parameter, it will perform the operation (Click on continue, yes, enter, esc etc as needed) you have specified.