How To Download And Setup Edge Driver For Selenium

Setup and Integration of Edge Driver with Selenium Framework

Now that we have gone through the benefits and features of the Selenium Edge driver let’s find out the methods for setting up and integrating the Edge driver with the Selenium framework. For the scope of this article, we will install the Edge driver on the x64 Windows operating system. Also, we will be using the Python programming language with Selenium for automating the Microsoft Edge browser moving onwards.

Pre-requisites

Before we jump on to the setup and integration of the Edge driver for the Microsoft Edge browser, let’s look at a few of the prerequisites for Selenium Edge Driver to run the Selenium test cases. Subsequently, we will examine all the configurations and programs required for executing the Selenium test cases on the Microsoft Edge browser:

• Edge Browser: The most apparent prerequisite is the Edge Browser. We recommend having the newest version of the Edge browser, but the current version will also work. To download the Microsoft Edge browser, follow the official download link.
• Python: Although Edge driver supports a variety of programming languages, we would be moving ahead with the Python programming language for the scope of this article. Python has sufficient community support and is easy to understand. It offers various libraries that make automation testing easier. To download Python, we can visit their official download Python page and choose the latest version according to our operating system.
• Visual Studio Code(VS Code): VS Code is a free and popular code editor that helps us start coding quickly. It has support for many programming languages, like C++, Java, Python, Javascript, Ruby, etc.,

In this article, we will use the VS Code as our code editor. We can download the latest version of VS Code by visiting the official download page for Visual Studio Code and selecting the correct system configuration.

• Selenium Framework: Selenium is a powerful tool for controlling a web browser through an executable script or code. It is available for all browsers and works on all major OS. We will use the latest Selenium framework with the Edge driver. We can install the latest version of Selenium by executing the following command:

pip install selenium

If you are getting an error while executing this command, there may be a possibility that PIP manager is not installed on your system, which is a must. PIP is a package management system used to install and manage software packages written in Python. However, if you don’t have pip, you can install it using the below command in your terminal:

curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py | python

Setup and Integration of Selenium Edge Driver

Once we have downloaded all the prerequisites for the setup and integration of the Selenium Edge drive, we can move on to the actual installation and setup. The installation and setup of the Edge driver with the Microsoft Edge browser and Selenium involves the following steps:

• First, we need to check the current version of the Microsoft Edge browser. To do so, open the Edge browser and click on “Settings and More” (the three dots) at the top right corner or press alt + F. Then, hover over “Help and Feedback ” in the settings menu and click on About Microsoft Edge. On the About page, we can find the current browser version, as shown in the image below.

• Next, we need to download the Edge driver for its setup and integration. We can visit the official Microsoft Edge driver download page to download the Edge driver. On the page, we can select the appropriate version based on the operating system and browser to download it. Make sure to download the correct version according to the browser; otherwise, we may get a runtime error or some unexpected crash.
• Once the download is complete, a zip file gets saved. We need to extract the downloaded zip file and store it in the desired location. After extracting it, we can find the executable file – msedgedriver.exe file at the selected location as sown in the image below:

This executable file is our required application file for the Edge driver. And in the upcoming steps, we will use this executable file in our automation script to integrate the Edge driver with the Selenium framework. Hence it is advisable to remember the file path.

• We will jump into the setup and integration of Edge driver with the Selenium framework to automate the Microsoft Edge browser. Hence we will start by creating a Python file named “automation_script_selenium.py” and open it in Visual Studio Code.
• Finally, we will integrate the Edge driver with the Selenium framework to open a browser session. Here we will open the browser and then navigate to a web page (https://www.lambdatest.com) with an automation script.

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.edge.service import Service


# Driver Code
if __name__ == '__main__':
    # create service object
    edgeService = Service(
        r"D:\Lambdatest Tools\edgedriver_win64\msedgedriver.exe")


    # create webdriver object
    edgeDriver = webdriver.Edge(service=edgeService)


    # open browser and navigate to the website
    edgeDriver.get('https://www.lambdatest.com')

In the above code, we are instructing the Microsoft Edge browser to open the specified web page (https://www.lambdatest.com). At first, we create an “edgeService” object that represents the Microsoft Edge browser using the Service class provided by Selenium.

Next, we assign this service object to the Edge driver in the “edgeDriver” variable. This will be responsible for controlling and executing actions on the browser. Finally, we navigate to the specified web page (https://www.lambdatest.com) with the help of edgeDriver.get(‘https://www.lambdatest.com’) method.

Now if we run this code, it will automate the Microsoft Edge browser and open the specified page in a new browser session, as shown in the image below.

Automating a ToDo App on Edge Browser Using Edge Driver

In the previous section, we looked at how to set up and integrate the Edge driver with the Selenium framework. We opened a specified web page by automating the Microsoft Edge browser. Now let’s look at automating some real-world scenarios like filling and submitting forms and testing the behavior of the web app.

In this article, we will automate a simple Todo App for testing the functionality of “Creating todos,” “Marking as completed,” and “deleting todos.” For simplicity and better understanding, we will split this example of automating the Todo app into three parts separately for testing each functionality. So, let’s dive into the example to master the automation testing on Microsoft Edge through the Edge driver.

Create Todos

The first and undeniable functionality to test in any todo app is its capability of creating new todo and displaying it on the todo list. In this example, we will create three todos and add them to the list one by one with a visible time gap.

The first step for writing any automation script is to figure out the proper intuition and algorithm for the particular test case. The testing algorithm that we will follow for this example will be as follows:

• Start the Microsoft Edge browser and then open the specified URL (https://tanay-deo.web.app/todo) to be tested.
• Select the input tag (“Enter a Todo”) for adding todo and then write the content for the todo to be added.
• Once the content for todo is entered in the input tag, we need to click the button “Add Todo” for adding the todo to the list.
• Verify if the desired todo is added to the list or not.
• Repeat the steps from 2 to 4, for adding multiple todos and testing.

Now we can move ahead to create the automation script based on the above algorithm to automate the Microsoft Edge browser through the Selenium Edge driver. For this automation script, we will be using the Python programing language with the Selenium framework in VS Code as discussed earlier. So, let’s create a file named “add_todos.py” and write the automation script as shown below:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.edge.service import Service
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
import time




def add_todos(edgeDriver):
    # Add todos one by one
    todos = ["Buy groceries", "Finish homework", "Go for a run"]
    for todo in todos:
        # Find the input field
        input_field = edgeDriver.find_element(
            By.CSS_SELECTOR, ".add-todo input[type='text']")


        # Enter the todo text
        input_field.send_keys(todo)


        # Introduce a delay for a realistic effect
        time.sleep(1)


        # Find the "Add Todo" button and click it
        add_button = edgeDriver.find_element(
            By.CSS_SELECTOR, ".add-todo button")
        add_button.click()


        # Introduce a delay for a realistic effect
        time.sleep(1)




# Create the Edge Driver service
edgeService = Service(
    r"D:\Lambdatest Tools\edgedriver_win64\msedgedriver.exe")


# Create the Edge WebDriver
edgeDriver = webdriver.Edge(service=edgeService)


# Open the Todo app
url = "https://tanay-deo.web.app/todo"
edgeDriver.get(url)


# Call the add_todos method
add_todos(edgeDriver)


# Close the browser
edgeDriver.quit()

In the automation script above, we first create an instance of the Edge Driver service as “edgeService,” providing the path to the Microsoft Edge WebDriver executable file. And then, we create an instance of the Edge WebDriver as “edgeDriver,” passing the edgeService object as an argument as we did earlier in the previous sections.

Here the add_todos(edgeDriver) method is mainly responsible for creating multiple todos and adding them to the todo list as described in our algorithm. It selects the input_field and add_button with the help of the find_element and CSS_SELECTOR attributes of the Selenium Edge driver.

Based upon the selection, it first enters the todo content in the input_field and then performs a click operation on add_button to add the todo to the list. We can also verify if our site is working properly with the visible changes on the todo list, as shown in the image below.

Mark First Todo as Completed

In this example, we will move one step ahead and test the functionality for “marking a todo as completed.” To do so, we will mark the first todo in the todo list from the previous example.

The intuition to mark the first todo element as complete will be very simple. It includes identifying the correct list item and then marking it as completed. The testing algorithm that we will follow for this example will be as follows:

• The obvious prerequisite for this test case is that the todo list must have one or more items in it. So, make sure that the todo list has an element in it. If not then we must add a few todos by following the above example.
• Find all the elements present in the todo list with the help of CSS_SELECTORS and their class names.
• Select the desired todo item by accessing the first child of the todo list.
• Find the “Mark as Complete” button for the selected list item and toggle that to mark it as completed.
• Verify if the first todo element is marked as completed or not.

Let’s move ahead to create the automation script for automating the task of “Marking a todo as completed” on the Microsoft Edge browser through the Edge driver. We can create a file named “mark_completed_todo.py” and jump into the code as shown below:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.edge.service import Service
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from add_todos import add_todos
import time




def mark_first_todo_completed(edgeDriver):
    # Locate the first todo in the list
    first_todo = edgeDriver.find_element(
        By.CSS_SELECTOR, ".todo-list li:first-child")


    # Click the checkbox button to mark it as completed
    checkbox_button = first_todo.find_element(
        By.CSS_SELECTOR, ".checkbox-button")
    checkbox_button.click()


    # Add time delay for ralistic effect
    time.sleep(2)




# Create the Edge Driver service
edgeService = Service(
    r"D:\Lambdatest Tools\edgedriver_win64\msedgedriver.exe")


# Create the Edge WebDriver
edgeDriver = webdriver.Edge(service=edgeService)


# Open the Todo app
edgeDriver.get("https://tanay-deo.web.app/todo")


# Add todos
add_todos(edgeDriver)


# Mark first todo as completed
mark_first_todo_completed(edgeDriver)


# Close the browser
edgeDriver.quit()

In this automation script for marking the first todo as completed, first, we create a new browser session by the use of the Selenium WebDriver service object and the edgeDriver object similar to the previous example.

The code first calls the add_todos method to ensure that the todo list has some elements. After mark_first_todo_completed method is called which detects the first_todo element with the help of find_element and CSS_SELECTOR attributes of the Edge driver. Similarly, it also finds the checkbox_button to toggle the “Mark as completed” button. Finally, it performs a click option to mark it as completed. And we can verify the result as the color of the todo element changes as shown in the image below.

Delete the Completed Todos

Now, in this example; we will delete all the todos marked as completed. Doing so will test our web app for the delete todo functionality and ensure that our app is completely functional and responsive with the Microsoft Edge browser. We will write the script for this example in continuation to the previous examples.

Figuring out the testing algorithm for this example is as simple as that of the “Mark First Todo as completed” with just a few modifications. The process involves the selection of all the completed lists and then iterating through them to delete them one by one. The steps for the testing algorithm can be described as follows:

• First step is to make sure that there is at least one todo marked as completed in the todo list on the web app. If not, then we can add some by following the previous examples.
• Select all the completed todos from the todo list using CSS Selectors on the “.completed” class.
• Iterate through each selected list and find their respective delete button with the help of CSS Selectors.
• Perform mouse click on each of the delete buttons one by one to delete them.
• Verify the testing results by checking if all the todos marked as completed are deleted or not.

Now let’s start creating the automation script for this particular example as we did in all previous examples. The automation script will be designed based on the testing algorithm we just figured out. So, we can start by creating a new Python file named “delete_todos.py” as shown below:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.edge.service import Service
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from add_todos import add_todos
from mark_completed_todo import mark_first_todo_completed
import time




def delete_completed_todos(edgeDriver):
    # Find all completed todos
    completed_todos = edgeDriver.find_elements(
        By.CSS_SELECTOR, ".todo-list li.completed")


    # Iterate over completed todos and delete them
    for todo in completed_todos:
        delete_button = todo.find_element(
            By.CSS_SELECTOR, ".delete-button")
        delete_button.click()
        time.sleep(1)




# Create the Edge Driver service
edgeService = Service(
    r"D:\Lambdatest Tools\edgedriver_win64\msedgedriver.exe")


# Create the Edge WebDriver
edgeDriver = webdriver.Edge(service=edgeService)


# Open the Todo app
edgeDriver.get("https://tanay-deo.web.app/todo")


# Add todos
add_todos(edgeDriver)


# Mark first todo as completed
mark_first_todo_completed(edgeDriver)


# Delete completed todos
delete_completed_todos(edgeDriver)


# Close the browser
edgeDriver.quit()

In the above example, we first created a new instance of the Microsoft Edge browser to automate the task of deleting the completed todos.

The code first calls the add_todos method to make sure that the todo list has some elements. After that, mark_first_todo_completed method is called. It marks the first element as completed, as discussed in previous examples. Next, the delete_completed_todos method is called; it detects the completed_todos list with the help of find_element and CSS_SELECTOR attributes of the Edge driver applied on the “.todo-list li.completed” class. Similarly, it also finds the delete_button for each completed_todos and performs a click option to delete it from the todo list. And we can verify the result as visible on the automated Microsoft Edge session as shown in the image below.

The complete code for the three examples discussed can be found in this GitHub repo.