How to use Selenium WebDriver in Katalon Studio

How to use Selenium WebDriver in Katalon Studio

Create/Call/Terminate

One of the best go-to feature of Selenium is that we do not need to create and call the instance of the WebDriver. It is automatically created when we call the keyword. In the below example, Chrome is taken as the WebDriver

WebUI.openBrowser 
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver
import com.kms.katalon.core.webui.keyword.WebUiBuiltInKeywords as WebUI
WebUI.openBrowser('')
WebDriver myDriver = new ChromeDriver()

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We are also able to set a Java system property with the driver location at the start of your test with the help of the following code.

System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "C:\\test\\chromedriver.exe")

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And lastly, We can easily terminate the WebDriver instance by calling driver.close().

It’s important to note that we can not use Katalon WebUI keywords with a manually created WebDriver instance.

DriverFactory​

We have a library ‘Driver Factory’, mainly responsible for providing easy-to-use inbuilt methods for using WebDriver along with manipulation with the WebDriver instance.

We can use the Katalon Keywords with the manually created WebDriver instances with the help of changeWebDriver() method which sets the driver as a default driver.

import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver
import com.kms.katalon.core.webui.keyword.WebUiBuiltInKeywords as WebUI
System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "C:\\test\\chromedriver.exe")
WebDriver mydriver = new ChromeDriver()
// this will not work 
//exception would be thrown
WebUI.click(testObject)
DriverFactory.changeWebDriver(mydriver)
//Now, it works as expected
WebUI.click(testObject)

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Next up we have the getWebDriver() method, opposite of the changeWebDriver() method to get an instance of WebDriver created by Katalon itself and use its methods.

import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver
import com.kms.katalon.core.webui.driver.DriverFactory
import com.kms.katalon.core.webui.keyword.WebUiBuiltInKeywords as WebUI
WebUI.openBrowser('')
WebDriver testdriver = DriverFactory.getWebDriver()

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Firstly, a WebDriver instance is created in the openBrowser() method.

Multiple WebDrivers​

It is not permitted to use multiple drivers in Katalon at the same time. Calling WebUI.openBrowser() twice will lead to the termination of the first browser window and opening the second one.

import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver
import com.kms.katalon.core.webui.driver.DriverFactory
System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", DriverFactory.getChromeDriverPath())
WebDriver myDriver1 = new ChromeDriver()
WebDriver myDriver2 = new ChromeDriver()
DriverFactory.changeWebDriver(myDriver1)
DriverFactory.changeWebDriver(myDriver2)

myDriver1.close()
myDriver2.close()

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Benefits of Selenium WebDriver​​

1.Operations on multiple Web elements​

The method findElements() returns a list of WebElements found by a specified selector. It becomes handy when we access multiple elements, like tally or select all of them.

Refer to the code below which shows How we can count the total of options in a select box using WebDriver.

import org.openqa.selenium.By
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver
System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", DriverFactory.getChromeDriverPath())
WebDriver myDriver = new ChromeDriver()
List optionsList = myDriver.findElements(By.xpath("//select[@id='selectBox1']/option"))
int numOfOptions = optionsList.size()

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2. Easy transition from Java Selenium projects to Katalon's​

Java codes work in Katalon. But to be able to use the inbuilt keywords of Katalon, we need to call the changeWebDriver() method.

3. Options and capabilities​

Moving further, we can even set different options along with the capabilities to our WebDriver. 

Then simply pass them to the WebDriver instance. Refer to the following code below to set a custom download path:

import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeOptions
import com.kms.katalon.core.webui.driver.DriverFactory
String downloadingPath = "C:\\customDownloadFolder\\"
Map<String, Object> chromewebPrefs = new HashMap<String, Object>()
chromewebPrefs.put("download.default_directory", downloadPath)
chromewebPrefs.put("download.prompt_for_download", false)
System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", DriverFactory.getChromeDriverPath())
ChromeOptions options = new ChromeOptions()
options.setExperimentalOption("prefs", chromePrefs)
WebDriver myDriver = new ChromeDriver(options)

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4. Actions​

Actions is one powerful API used to emulate complex user gestures from Selenium. To use Actions, we need a constructor which needs an instance of WebDriver.

import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver
import org.openqa.selenium.interactions.Actions
import com.kms.katalon.core.webui.driver.DriverFactory
WebDriver myDriver = DriverFactory.getWebDriver()
Actions action = new Actions(myDriver)

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Frequently Asked Questions

How can we terminate the WebDrivers from the main menu?

Go to the main toolbar. From there, you need to select Tools. After selecting Tools, Tools > Web >Terminate WebDrivers

Which Scripting language do we use in Katalon Studio?

Groovy is used as a scripting language in Katalon.

Which method returns the path to any driver without coding it?

DriverFactory.getChromeDriverPath() is the method that returns the path to any driver.

Conclusion

We hope the blog helped you understand the concept of selenium WebDriver. Firstly, We began with the fundamentals of Katalon Studio and then the blog concluded with the concept of using Selenium WebDriver in Katalon Studio.

If you found this blog interesting and insightful, refer to similar blogs:

Web Application Testing Tools

Web API introduction

Terminate, Upgrade and Downgrade the webdrivers in Katalon Studio

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