hu.ibello.elements

Interface WebElement

public interface WebElement

An instance of this interface represents an element on a web-page. The existence of a WebElement instance does not state that the underlying element exists on the page. It just stores the search criteria and another information about the element. Later, when the WebElement instance is used, will be verified that the underlying element exists or not. Therefore it is safe to store a WebElement instance and use it later.

A WebElement instance does not have direct methods to manipulate the element itself or do some assertions with it - these are available from page objects. (See PageObject.) During element manipulation and verification the ibello reruns the search again if necessary. A typical example is when an element on a page is recreated by javascript code after the search. In this case, the original element is not present anymore so it can't be clicked. If someone tries to call a click action on it, then ibello recognizes the change and executes the search again. Only if the second search does not finds anything will ibello throw an exception.

The WebElement supports element search between it's descendants. For more information, see find().

If a WebElement instance was obtained by a search which received parameters, then there is an option to change these parameters later, and rerun the search - see applyParameters(Object...).

Author:

Kornél Simon

See Also:

WebElements

Method Summary

Modifier and Type	Method and Description
WebElement	applyParameters(Object... parameters) Changes the search parameters of this WebElement instance.
SearchTool	find() Returns a SearchTool instance which is used to search elements inside this element.

Method Detail

applyParameters

WebElement applyParameters(Object... parameters)

Changes the search parameters of this WebElement instance.

A WebElement instance can be created with an element search - see SearchTool and PageObject. During the search some parameters can be specified, which are substituted into the search pattern. The WebElement instance stores these parameters, and we can change them to indicate a new search later, when the instance is going to be used.

It is possible to not define the parameters at the time of the creation of a WebElement instance, and set them later, before the instance is used. Example (from a page object):

  // search an element without specifying the parameter
  @Find("#button-${0}")
 WebElement button;
 
 public clickButton(int index) {
      // set the parameter and therefore rerun the search then click the element
     doWith(button.applyParameters(index)).click();
 }
 

Parameters:

parameters - the new search parameters

Returns:

the current WebElement instance

find

SearchTool find()

Returns a SearchTool instance which is used to search elements inside this element.

The returned instance offers a fluent interface for element search. Example:

 WebElement image = ...;
 WebElement child = find().using(By.TAG_NAME, "span").leftFrom(image).first();
 

Returns:

an object used for element search inside this element