Microsoft Edge supports Selenium WebDriver
Good news for the test
automation folks!
In
another developer-friendly move, Microsoft announces that its new Edge browser
supports the WebDriver automated testing technology.
Microsoft may be distancing its new Edge
browser from Internet Explorer (IE) and its contentious past, but it is inheriting
at least some developer features.
In addition to an improved set of F12 tools, the company announced that Edge supports
WebDriver, an emerging automated site-testing standard from the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C). Windows Insiders, members of Microsoft's beta program, can
test the functionality in build 10240 or newer. The company first added WebDriver
support to IE 11 a year ago.
The use of
WebDriver with Edge requires running Microsoft WebDriver server software with
Microsoft Edge on Windows 10 (build 10240 and above). Microsoft halted
downloads of the server after a "publishing issue" cropped up, but
the company hopes to restore the software later today (July 24).
WebDriver helps
developers test complex sites, allowing them to find and ultimately fix issues
much faster than using manual methods. "It provides a programmable remote
control for developing complex user scenarios and running them in an automated
fashion against your Website in a browser," Microsoft Edge staffers Clay
Martin, program manager; John Jansen, principal software engineer; Jatinder
Mann, senior program manager lead; and Mark Conway, director of automation
testing tool specialist Micro Focus,wrote in a joint blog post.
The tech helps developers maintain the quality
of major Websites, including Microsoft's own search engine. "WebDriver is
used by top Web properties like Bing, Azure, SharePoint, Facebook, Google and
others to automate testing their sites within a browser," they noted. A key aim of the Edge project is to help al with the modern Web. To that end, Microsoft has worked to embrace more modern,
developer-friendly Web standards. The company has even shed some hallmark IE
technologies like ActiveX to further the cause.
Microsoft is also
courting developers by streamlining their cross-browser testing workflows.
"With this new capability, Microsoft Edge can be run through the same
regression testing as other browsers, helping developers identify issues with
less effort and making sites just work for our end users," stated the
group.
To enable WebDriver
support, Microsoft teamed with Micro Focus and its Borland subsidiary "to
help contribute code to the WebDriver implementation in Microsoft Edge,"
they revealed.
"The Borland
team is also bringing their expertise in automation testing to help inform the
next level of changes we should pursue in the W3C standard." U.K.-based Micro Focus
acquired Borland, known as a leader in the
application lifecycle management and deployment solutions market, in 2009 for
$75 million.
Typical of packages
that allow users to dig into code, developers will need to perform some setup.
"To get started using WebDriver, you will need to download a testing
framework of your choice along with an appropriate language binding and the
Microsoft WebDriver server," stated the group. Supported language bindings
include C# and Java Selenium, with the goal of adding more to come in the
future.
Source: http://www.eweek.com/cloud/microsoft-edge-browser-supports-webdriver-site-testing-standard.html
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