Configuring selenium IDE options

Before starting off to use the selenium IDE tool one must know some of the basic configuration setting for the IDE.

The selenium IDE configuration settings can be accessed from the Options menu > Options on the IDE. From here one can configure the basic settings like enabling recording on IDE start, timeout values, remembering base URL, etc..

General Tab

Default timeout value: This is used to specify the default timeout value each command or step will wait while execution. By default this value is set to 30000 milliseconds. A command taking time beyond this value will return the error “[error] Timed out after 30000 ms”.

Selenium core & IDE extensions: By attaching custom created extensions (in .js format) in the selenium core extensions, the selenium IDE’s capabilities can be extended.

Remember base URL: Check this for the selenium IDE to launch every time with the base URL.

Record assertTile automatically: Causes IDE to add assert command every time navigation from one page to another occurs.

Enabling experimental feature: Enabling this will provide the user to use some disabled features such as IDE format feature, web driver playback, etc..

Autostart record: If checked, every time IDE is opened it will immediately start to record the user’s browser actions.

Format Tab

The format tab is used to edit the configuration file which defines the process of converting the IDE commands to each of the scripting languages supported. The configuration setting of each of these can be edited.

Plugins Tab

The plugin tab lists all the by default installed as well as user installed plugins. Several useful plugins such as ‘Screenshot on Fail’ can be installed from the Firefox’s online plugin list.

Locator builders Tab

The locator builders tab is used for specifying the locator object order recorded while recording using IDE. For instance while recording if a user is to click on a locator having a LINK and ID attribute, ID attribute will be used as the locator since the user has specified the ID attribute to have higher priority.