How to Send Keyboard Keys in Selenium Webdriver

How to send keyboard keys in selenium webdriver? Selenium automation is not just about navigating and clicking through the links. Yes, you can use it to switch tabs, find broken links or even drag and drop directly. But there is a lot more to it. An essential aspect of test automation is passing values to the text fields. In this article, we’ll delve into how Selenium helps us pass values to text fields using the Selenium sendKeys() method. Let us start on our journey to learn how to sendkeys in Selenium.

How to Send Keyboard Keys in Selenium Webdriver

You can send keyboard Keys in selenium webdriver by using the send keys. i would fill you in on what sendkeys is and how to send keyboard keys in selenium webdriver using the sendkeys. SendKeys is a method used to send keyboard input such as characters, numbers, and symbols to text boxes inside an application. When you are testing an application, all the actions are taken care of by the webdriver element.

Erasing Text With Selenium SendKeys

You can use Sendkeys to send keys as well as erase keys. Why would you need to erase the characters that you’ve just sent to the text box? Here’s a use case. When you type something on the Google search engine, you get suggestions even before you search for it. You might have a similar feature in your application. Of course, you can open a URL multiple times and type freshly. But that’s not efficient. It puts more load on the system and also takes more time.

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Instead, you can use the same driver that has opened a URL and found the textbox element, and change your input. This code will open the Google search engine’s homepage and enter the text “testing” in the search bar. Then it will erase 3 characters from the end leaving the text “test” in the search bar. Then we send more keys “im testing” that would be appended to the existing text. So, now we have “testim testing” in the search bar. And finally, the code clears all the text in the search bar.

Do you have troubleshooting Issues With Selenium SendKeys

In complex applications, it can get a little difficult to get things right the first time. So, here are some of the most common issues you’d face while using selenium sendkeys and how to get over them:

• You need to make sure that the element you’ve chosen is an element that takes keyboard inputs. For example, an image in the application will not take keyboard inputs. So, if you’re getting errors sending keys, first check and confirm that the element accepts keyboard inputs.
• Modern applications commonly nest elements. When you’ve found the element you want to use, make sure to use the right reference to the object i.e., ID, name, class, etc. In nested elements, identify the reference to the desired element that takes keyboard inputs and is reachable
• In some cases, you might need to trigger an event in order to send keys to the element. For example, there could be a textbox that takes input only after a mouse click has occurred on that element. In such cases, just finding the element and sending keys won’t work. You will have to find the element, click on the element, and then send keys.
• Sending keys might fail when the element is not active or reachable. For example, a text field might become active only after filling the previous text box or a pop-up might have blocked actions on the background elements. In such cases, sending keys will result in failure. You need to first make the element active and reachable for the element to become active and then send keys.You can also send keyboard key in selenium webedriver by using testim.

WHAT IS TESTIM?

Testim is a “record and playback” automated testing platform. It will record all your actions and then simulate those actions just like Selenium does. The advantage of using Testim is that you can create tests even if you don’t have any programming knowledge. In addition, Testim uses AI-based Smart Locators that help identify elements even when code changes. This helps overcome the problem of flakey tests that Selenium is known for.

Testim uses complex AI algorithms for application testing. So you can just record your actions using Testim and Testim will repeat the process the next time. Now let me show you how Testim can beused to send keyboard inputs to a web application.

HOW TO USE TESTIM

The first step is to log in. Then go to the dashboard and click on the CREATE TEST button. If it’s the first time you’re using Testim record on the browser, you will be asked to install an extension. Install it.

To record the test, click the Record button. The tool will open a new browser window where you can perform the tasks for testing the application. I’ll create a simple test where I’ll search Google for “Testim.” Then I’ll visit the Testim website and click on an element.

Once you complete the test actions, you’ll see the list of actions you took as shown in the screenshot below.

To run the test again, just click the Play button.

Notice that I sent keyboard inputs without writing even a single line of code. More importantly, you can also modify the test and parameterize the input to try different types of data. For instance, if you have a list of data search terms in an Excel spreadsheet, you can run the test multiple times, selecting a new input from the Excel spreadsheet. This makes it really easy to test variable input to your application to mimic what an unpredictable user might do.You need to do more than test your application for various text inputs, of course. Testim can make the entire end-to-end process much easier by expanding your test coverage, reducing the amount of maintenance you’ll need to perform, and increasing your testing agility.