The 5 Minute Getting Started Guide

Before you start:

• CheckOut the latest version of the code, because there aren't any pre-packed binaries yet.
• Follow the instructions in BuildingWebDriver.

Assuming that you've built everything and the source is located at $WEBDRIVER_HOME, and we're only going to use the HtmlUnitDriver to start with:

• Start a new Java project in your favourite IDE
• Add $WEBDRIVER_HOME/common/build/webdriver-common.jar to the CLASSPATH
• Add $WEBDRIVER_HOME/htmlunit/build/webdriver-htmlunit.jar to the CLASSPATH
• Add all the Jar files under $WEBDRIVER_HOME/htmlunit/lib/runtime to the CLASSPATH

We're now ready to write some code. Perhaps something that looks like:

package org.openqa.selenium.example;

import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebElement;
import org.openqa.selenium.htmlunit.HtmlUnitDriver;

public class Example  {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // Create a new instance of the html unit driver
        WebDriver driver = new HtmlUnitDriver();

        // And now use this to visit Google
        driver.get("http://www.google.com");

        // Find the text input element by its name
        WebElement element = driver.findElement(By.name("q"));

        // Enter something to search for
        element.sendKeys("Cheese!");

        // Now submit the form. WebDriver will find the form for us from the element
        element.submit();

        // Check the title of the page
        System.out.println("Page title is: " + driver.getTitle());
    }
}

Compile and run it. Congratulations, you've managed to get started with WebDriver!

Now let's try something that needs Javascript. Follow the instructions on the FirefoxDriver page in order to create a profile called "WebDriver" and install the WebDriver extension. Once that's done, create a new class called GoogleSuggest, which looks like:

package org.openqa.selenium.example;

import java.util.List;

import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebElement;
import org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver;

public class GoogleSuggest {
    @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        // The Firefox driver supports javascript 
        WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver();
        
        // Go to the Google Suggest home page
        driver.get("http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en");
        
        // Enter the query string "I like cheese"
        WebElement query = driver.findElement(By.name("q"));
        query.sendKeys("Cheese");

        // This should go at some point, but allows Google to return some suggestions for now
        Thread.sleep(2000);

        // And now list the suggestions
        List<WebElement> allSuggestions = driver.findElements(By.xpath("//td[@class='google-ac-c']"));
        
        for (WebElement suggestion : allSuggestions) {
            System.out.println(suggestion.getText());
        }
     }
}

When you run this program, you'll see the list of suggestions being printed to the console. That's all there is to using WebDriver! You're ready to take the NextSteps, now.