Exercise 1 - Creating a first WebDriver project¶

If you already know Visual Studio and how to create a C# project you can move on to the next exercise otherwise the steps below will outline how to create a project and add the needed references for using Selenium WebDriver. You are going to create a folder where all your work from these exercises will be saved

Goals

Create and execute your first program that uses Selenium WebDriver
Understand the basics of WebDriver

1. Creating a Solution for the Exercises¶

In these lessons we will use this one solution to hold and build all exercises.

Open Visual Studio
In the top menu Select: File > New > Project
In the left tree Select: Other Project Types > Visual Studio Solutions
Select the project type Blank Solution
- Type “WebDriverViaCSharp” in the Name textbox
- Change the location to where you want them stored
- Click Ok button
Now save the project by clicking the Save All icon, or (Ctrl+Shift+S)

So now you should have a new solution called: “WebDriverViaCSharp”

2. Create a C# Console App project¶

Create a project for Exercise-1, the project will be in the language of C# and will compile into a exe (executable) that can be run by double clicking

From the Solution Explorer
- Right click the solution WebDriverViaCSharp
- Select Add
- Select New Project...
From the Add New Project dialog
- Select Visual C#
- Select Console App(.NET Framework)
- Type “Exercise-1” in the Name textbox
- Click Ok button

3. Add a reference to WebDriver and ChromeDriver¶

From the Solution Explorer
- Right click the solution: WebDriverViaCSharp
- Select Manage NuGet Package For Solution...
- To add Selenium.WebDriver NuGet package
  
  From the NuGet - Solution dialog
  
  Select Browse from the top Tabs
  
  Type WebDriver in the Search textbox
  
  Click on Selenium.WebDriver from the list
  
  In the right pain click the checkbox next to the project named: Exercise-01
  
  Click Install
- To add Selenium.WebDriver.ChromeDriver NuGet package
  
  From the NuGet - Solution dialog
  
  Select Browse from the top Tabs
  
  Type ChromeDriver in the Search textbox
  
  Click on Selenium.WebDriver.ChromeDriver from the list
  
  In the right pain click the checkbox next to the project named: Exercise-01
  
  Click Install

Now you should a have a working C# project that is referencing the needed Selenium WebDriver libraries for Web UI automation

4. Add some code and run it¶

Lets add the code to create a browser driver, navigate to a specific url, and then close the browser and end the session.

In the Solution Explorer in the project Exercise-1
- Double click the file named: “Program.cs”
  
  Inside the file you should see special method called “Main”
  
  Add the following code (lines 5-7) into the Main() method

class exercise1
{
  static void Main(string[] args)
  {
    var cDriver = new OpenQA.Selenium.Chrome.ChromeDriver();
    cDriver.Navigate().GoToUrl("http://RickCasady.com");
    cDriver.Dispose();
  }
}

To compile the code and lunch the exe with a debugger attached
- Click the Start button in the toolbar at the top
  
  You can accomplish the same by (Clicking Debug > Start Debugging) or (use the key F5)

When you run this code you should see a Chrome browser come up and then it should navigate to the url. Once the url is loaded the browser will close and the session will end, its possible the url will load so quick that you will just see the browser open and then close.

WebDriver and RemoteWebDriver are the class’s through which the developer (you) controls the browser. ChromeDriver is a derived from the RemoteWebDriver, ChromeDriver has all the functionality of its parent class RemoteWebDriver and some Chrome specific implementation as well.

Summary

You should be able to create solutions and add projects.
You also should be able to add NuGet packages to you projects.
You should be able to compile, run and debug your code