Quality Engineering・4 min read・Last update on May 3, 2023

# Selenium 4 - Deprecated, Modified and New Methods

 

 

 

 ![Selenium 4 - Deprecated, Modified and New Methods](/sites/default/files/remediation-media/64e5de79ddbb962623d0bdd5_image.avif) 

 



 

   Table of contents  - [Drivers Constructor](#drivers-constructor)
- [Selenium 3](#selenium-3)
- [Selenium 4](#selenium-4)
- [New Methods in the Actions Class](#new-methods-in-the-actions-class)
- [Changes in the FluentWait class](#changes-in-the-fluentwait-class)
- [Implicit Wait](#implicit-wait)
- [FindsBy](#findsby)
- [Conclusion](#conclusion)
 
  

 

There are various new features added in Selenium 4. These enhancements are accompanied by deprecations and the addition of some methods. Let’s understand the deprecated methods and their replacement.

### Drivers Constructor

In Selenium 3, some driver constructors accept the [DesiredCapabilities](https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/selenium/wiki/DesiredCapabilities) object as a parameter. **DesiredCapabilities** is a class that is used to set basic properties of browsers such as browser name, browser version, operating systems etc. to perform cross-browser testing.

In Selenium 4, **DesiredCapabilities** is replaced with **Options**. The **Options** interface provides methods to change the properties of the browser such as cookies, incognito, headless, disable pop-ups, add extensions, etc. Testers can either use only Options or combine Desired Capabilities with Options.

**Note:** Options are preferably used with Capabilities for customizing driver sessions.

  ![Selenium 4](/sites/default/files/styles/uncropped_960w_webp/public/c3-body-media/0e5b18290537e29abb5164ca.png.webp?itok=s9u6Jw1I) ### Selenium 3

 ```

@BeforeClass
public void setUp() throws Exception {
        DesiredCapabilities capabilities = new DesiredCapabilities();
        capabilities.setCapability("browserName", "chrome");
        capabilities.setCapability("browserVersion", "90.0");
        capabilities.setCapability("platformName", "mac");
        capabilities.setCapability("applicationName", "Testing");
        capabilities.setCapability("chrome.driver","90.0");

        WebDriverManager.chromedriver().setup();
        driver = new ChromeDriver(capabilities);
        driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(Duration.ofSeconds(10));
        driver.get("https://www.qed42.com");          
}
```

### Selenium 4

- Using **Options** class only: Create an instance of Options class, set the requirements and pass it to the Driver constructor.

 ```

@BeforeClass
public void setUp() {
	ChromeOptions options = new ChromeOptions();
	options.addArguments("--incognito");
	options.setAcceptInsecureCerts(true);
	options.setPageLoadStrategy(PageLoadStrategy.EAGER);
		
	DesiredCapabilities capabilities = new DesiredCapabilities();
	capabilities.setCapability(ChromeOptions.CAPABILITY, options);
	options.merge(capabilities);

	WebDriverManager.chromedriver().setup();
	driver = new ChromeDriver(options);
	driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(Duration.ofSeconds(10));
	driver.get("https://expired.badssl.com/");
}
```

- Combining **DesiredCapabilities** with **Options** class: Use the merge(Capabilities) method of the Options class.  
    ‍

 ```

@BeforeClass
public void setUp() {
	ChromeOptions options = new ChromeOptions();
	options.addArguments("--incognito");
	options.setAcceptInsecureCerts(true);
	options.setPageLoadStrategy(PageLoadStrategy.EAGER);
		
	DesiredCapabilities capabilities = new DesiredCapabilities();
	capabilities.setCapability(ChromeOptions.CAPABILITY, options);
	options.merge(capabilities);

	WebDriverManager.chromedriver().setup();
	driver = new ChromeDriver(options);
	driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(Duration.ofSeconds(10));
	driver.get("https://expired.badssl.com/");
}

```

### New Methods in the Actions Class

Actions class in Selenium provides methods to automate mouse and keyboard user interaction with WebElement of the web application. Selenium 4 provides few additional Actions methods which replace the classes under the org.openqa.selenium.interactions package.

#### click(WebElement)

In Selenium 3, toGitHub click a webelement we could use either of below two methods:

 ```

driver.findElement(WebElement).click();
                  OR
action.moveToElement(WebElement).click();
```

  ![Selenium 4](/sites/default/files/styles/uncropped_960w_webp/public/c3-body-media/7c292503394921d70c8d8e59.png.webp?itok=8kFJonkP)  Selenium 4 provides a new method **click(WebElement)** in the Actions class which works as a replacement for the above methods.

**Snippet**

 ```

@Test
public void clickAction() {
	driver.get("http://demo.guru99.com/test/newtours/");
	Actions action = new Actions(driver);
	WebElement signOnLink = driver.findElement(By.linkText("SIGN-ON"));

	action.click(signOnLink).build().perform();
	Assert.assertEquals(driver.getTitle(), "Sign-on: Mercury Tours");
}
```

#### doubleClick(WebElement)

**doubleClick(WebElement)** method is used to perform double click on a **WebElement**. This method replaces moveT**oElement(WebElement).doubleClick()** in Selenium 4.

  ![Selenium 4](/sites/default/files/styles/uncropped_960w_webp/public/c3-body-media/a57625ebc0410af5b49d62c4.png.webp?itok=wdvpIGze) **Snippet:**

 ```

@Test
public void dblClickAction() {
     driver.get("https://api.jquery.com/dblclick/");
     driver.switchTo().frame(driver.findElement(By.xpath("//iframe")));
     Actions action = new Actions(driver);
     WebElement doubleClickBox = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//span[text()='Double click the block']//parent::body/div"));

     System.out.println("Color Before: " +doubleClickBox.getCssValue("background-color"));
     action.doubleClick(doubleClickBox).build().perform();
     System.out.println("Color After: " + doubleClickBox.getCssValue("background-color"));
}
```

**Output**

  ![Selenium 4](/sites/default/files/styles/uncropped_300w_webp/public/c3-body-media/651ae29a5b43899c5c58a8a8.png.webp?itok=N6xbgxZT) #### contextClick(WebElement)

**contextClick(WebElement)** method is used to perform a right click on a WebElement. This method replaces **moveToElement(WebElement).contextClick()** in Selenium 4.

**Snippet**

 ```

@Test
public void contextClickAction() {
	driver.get("https://swisnl.github.io/jQuery-contextMenu/demo.html");
	WebElement rightBtn = driver.findElement(By.className("btn"));

	Actions action = new Actions(driver);
	action.contextClick(rightBtn).perform();

	List elements = driver.findElements(By.cssSelector("li span"));
	System.out.println("WebElements After Right Click:");
	for (WebElement element : elements) {
		System.out.println("\t" + element.getText());
	}
}

```

**Output**

  ![Selenium 4](/sites/default/files/styles/uncropped_300w_webp/public/c3-body-media/598d445afd8b103e20e275ca.png.webp?itok=Mh1YP7oq) #### clickAndHold(WebElement)

**clickAndHold(WebElement)** method is used to perform click action on a **WebElement** without releasing the mouse. This method replaces **moveToElement(WebElement).clickAndHold()** in Selenium 4.

**Snippet**

 ```

@Test
public void clickAndHoldAction() throws InterruptedException {
	driver.get("https://jqueryui.com/draggable/");
	WebElement dragFrame = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//*[@id=\"content\"]/iframe"));
		
	driver.switchTo().frame(0);
	WebElement dragBox = driver.findElement(By.id("draggable"));

	Actions action = new Actions(driver);
	action.clickAndHold(dragBox).moveByOffset(75, 75).build().perform();
	Thread.sleep(2000);
		
	driver.switchTo().parentFrame();
	File source = dragFrame.getScreenshotAs(OutputType.FILE);
	File dest = new File(System.getProperty("user.dir") + "/screenshots/dragBox.png");

	try {
		FileHandler.copy(source, dest);
	} catch (IOException exception) {
		exception.printStackTrace();
	}	
}
```

**Output Screenshot:** The screenshot after moving the dragbox by some offset using **clickAndHold()** method

  ![drag and drop](/sites/default/files/c3-body-media/b9e225f0b0b674388e40b353.avif) #### release()

The **release()** and **release(WebElement)** methods are used for releasing the depressed left mouse button.

- **release()** method already exists in earlier versions of Selenium. In Selenium 4 this method is moved from **org.openqa.selenium.interactions.ButtonReleaseAction** class to the Actions class.
- **release(WebElement)** method replaces **moveToElement(WebElement).release()** in Selenium 4

  ![Actions methods](/sites/default/files/c3-body-media/a0ea649642ea2ce4a5de9be8.avif) **Snippet**

 ```

@Test
public void releaseAction() throws InterruptedException {
	driver.get("https://jqueryui.com/droppable/");
	driver.switchTo().frame(0);
		
	WebElement source = driver.findElement(By.id("draggable"));
	WebElement destination = driver.findElement(By.id("droppable"));

	Actions action = new Actions(driver);
	//Alternate way: action.clickAndHold(source).moveToElement(destination).release().build().perform();
	action.clickAndHold(source).release(destination).build().perform();

	File src = destination.getScreenshotAs(OutputType.FILE);
	File dest = new File(System.getProperty("user.dir") + "/screenshots/release.png");

	try {
		FileHandler.copy(src, dest);
	} catch (IOException exception) {
		exception.printStackTrace();
	}	
}

```

‍

**Output Screenshot:** The screenshot after dragging and releasing the box from source to destination

‍

  ![Drag and drop](/sites/default/files/c3-body-media/598ba97b21cc622bafdc683d.avif) The sample codes are available at the Github repository [here](https://github.com/sonamchaturvedi28/selenium4_codes/blob/main/NewActionsMethods.java).

### Changes in the FluentWait class

**FluentWait<T>** implements a generic functional interface Wait<T>.

- The Fluent Wait defines the maximum amount of time for the web driver to wait for a condition, as well as the frequency with which to check the condition before throwing an ElementNotVisibleException exception.
- It checks for the web element at regular intervals until the object is found or timeout happens.
- Furthermore, the user may configure the wait to ignore specific types of exceptions whilst waiting, such as NoSuchElementExceptions when searching for an element on the page.

#### Selenium

- In Selenium 3, the methods withTimeout() and pollingEvery() take two parameters **int** and **TimeUnit**.
 
 ```

Wait wait = new FluentWait(WebDriver reference)
            .withTimeout(timeout, SECONDS)
            .pollingEvery(timeout, SECONDS)
            .ignoring(Exception.class);
```

#### Selenium 3.11 and above

- With Selenium 3.11 (and above), the methods withTimeout() and pollingEvery() take only one parameter **java.time.Duration**.

 ```

Wait wait = new FluentWait(WebDriver reference)
            .withTimeout(Duration.ofSeconds(SECONDS))
            .pollingEvery(Duration.ofSeconds(SECONDS))
            .ignoring(Exception.class);
```

### Implicit Wait

Selenium 4 has replaced the **TimeUnit** with **Duration**. The **Duration** class can be imported from java.time package and has methods to represent time duration in nano, millis, seconds, minutes, hours, days and so on. The method implicitlyWait(long , TimeUnit) from the type WebDriver.Timeouts are also deprecated. In Selenium 4, implicitlyWait method takes only one parameter.

 ```

@BeforeClass
public void setUp()
{
	System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", /usr/local/bin/chromedriver");
	driver = new ChromeDriver();
       
      //deprecated
	driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(10, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
	driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(Duration.ofSeconds(10));
}
```

### FindsBy

The FindsBy interface, part of the org.openqa.selenium.internal package, is deprecated in Selenium 4. The [changes](https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/selenium/pull/8367) are internal to the Selenium framework. Therefore, Selenium users can continue using the **FindElement(By)** and **FindElements(By)** as used in Selenium 3.

### Conclusion

This article covers the deprecated, modified and new methods in Selenium 4. We need to consider these changes when we are migrating from Selenium 3 to Selenium 4.

 



Written by

Sonam Chaturvedi

QA Technical Lead

 

 

 

 

 

 

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