In today’s mobile-centric world, it is crucial for web applications to be tested thoroughly on mobile devices as well. Selenium, a popular web testing framework, offers powerful capabilities for automating mobile web testing as well. In this blog post, we will explore how to perform mobile web testing using Selenium in Python.

Setting up Selenium for Mobile Web Testing

Install Selenium Python Package

To get started, make sure you have Python installed on your machine. Then, install the Selenium package using pip by running the following command:

pip install selenium

Obtain WebDriver for Mobile Testing

Selenium requires a WebDriver to communicate with the mobile browser. Depending on the mobile operating system you want to test (e.g., Android or iOS), you will need the respective WebDriver.

Android WebDriver

To test on Android devices, you can use the Appium project, which provides the Appium WebDriver. Install Appium by running:

pip install Appium-Python-Client

iOS WebDriver

For iOS devices, you will need the WebDriverAgent project, which is part of the ios-driver project. Install the ios-driver package using:

pip install --pre facebook-wda

Writing a Mobile Web Test with Selenium

To showcase how Selenium can be used for mobile web testing, let’s consider an example where we automate the testing of a login page on a mobile web application.

Importing the Required Packages

First, we need to import the necessary packages for Selenium and the WebDriver.

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys

Setting up the WebDriver for Mobile

Next, we need to configure the WebDriver to interact with the mobile browser.

Android

For Android, we will use the Appium WebDriver and configure it to connect to the Android emulator or a physical device. Here’s an example of setting up the WebDriver for Android:

desired_caps = {
    'platformName': 'Android',
    'deviceName': 'emulator-5554',
    'browserName': 'Chrome'
}
driver = webdriver.Remote('http://localhost:4723/wd/hub', desired_caps)

iOS

For iOS, we will use the WebDriverAgent and configure it to connect to an iOS simulator or a physical device. Here’s an example of setting up the WebDriver for iOS:

desired_caps = {
    'platformName': 'iOS',
    'deviceName': 'iPhone 11',
    'automationName': 'XCUITest'
}
driver = webdriver.Remote('http://localhost:8100', desired_caps)

Automating the Mobile Web Test

Once the WebDriver is set up, we can start automating the mobile web test using Selenium commands.

Launching the Mobile Web Application

To open the mobile web application, we can use the get() method and provide the URL of the web application:

driver.get("https://www.example.com")

Interacting with Web Elements

To interact with web elements like text fields or buttons, we can use Selenium’s find_element_by_* methods. For example, to enter text into a username field and click on the login button, we can use the following code:

username_field = driver.find_element_by_id("username")
username_field.send_keys("myusername")

password_field = driver.find_element_by_id("password")
password_field.send_keys("mypassword")

login_button = driver.find_element_by_id("login-button")
login_button.click()

Running the Mobile Web Test

To run the mobile web test, simply execute the Python script. The WebDriver will launch the mobile browser, navigate to the specified URL, and interact with web elements based on the code written.

Conclusion

Selenium’s support for mobile web testing makes it a valuable tool for ensuring the compatibility and functionality of web applications across various devices. In this blog post, we explored how to set up Selenium for mobile web testing in Python and how to write a simple test script. With this knowledge, you can extend your test automation capabilities to include mobile web testing and deliver high-quality experiences for your end users.