Use of page objects page factory in Selenium

PageObjects

The code of automated test cases should be easy to understand and not too complex. If a test fails, we want to know why and this as soon as possible. To allow this exists PageObjects. PageObjects are classes that contains WebElements and every actions associated with those.

A PageObject looks like this:

class HomePage {

    WebDriver driver;

    public HomePage(driver) {
        this.driver = driver;
    }

    // Find a single element
    @FindBy(id="home-menu-entry")
    WebElement homeMenuEntry;

    public void clickHomeMenuEntry() {
        homeMenuEntry.click();
    }

    // Find several elements
    @FindBy(className="menu-entry")
    List<WebElement> menuEntries;

   // More actions and elements
}

Usage of PageFactory and PageObject

class TestSomething {

    public void testMethod() {

        // Initial driver.

        // Use PageFactory to init elements.
        HomePage hp = PageFactory.initElements(driver, HomePage.class);

        // Use PageObject to execute action.
        hp.clickHomeMenuEntry();

        // Assertions or more actions.

    }

}

You also can put the PageFactory.initElements(); into the constructor and create just an HomePage object instead of calling the PageFactory method.

Important: If you call initElements() all elements will be initialized, not later if you use them.

How to organize this?

I do the following: Each page has a PageObject, that represent these. But some components of a page are present on many pages. For this case I create for each component additional classes. Example:

• Header.class
• Footer.class
• HomePage.class
• ContactPage.class

Useful Links

• https://code.google.com/p/selenium/wiki/PageFactory
• https://code.google.com/p/selenium/wiki/PageObjects
• https://code.google.com/p/selenium/wiki/DesignPatterns