CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptseleniumselenium-webdriverwebdriverhidden-field
Chun ping Wang
Chun ping Wang

Reputation: 3929

Selenium WebDriver clicking on hidden element

Hi I would like to know how to click on hidden element and/or disable element by using Selenium WebDriver.

I know with selenium 1 I can do this as below:

selenium.click(id="idOfHiddenField");

and this would work, but with selenium 2 (WebDriver), this doesn't. I do not want to use jquery to enable or show hidden fields , or JavaScript. This is because most of the test are using xpath.

Or do I just have to stay with old selenium which allows you to click on hidden fields?

Upvotes: 11

Views: 32472

Answers (3)

Wil
Wil

Reputation: 5057

It may not fit your needs, but another solution for some might be to alter the CSS for hiding an element.

Whilst Selenium won't find an element with display: none; it will find an element with the following:

.hide {
    position: absolute;
    top: -99em;
    left: -99em;
}

Then rather than using jQuery.show/hide/toggle in your app, you would use jQuery.toggleClass('hide', true/false/unset_to_toggle).

Upvotes: 0

Ashwin Prabhu
Ashwin Prabhu

Reputation: 7634

There is a easier way to work around the problem using JavascriptExecutor.

For example:

document.getElementsByClassName('post-tag')[0].click();

The above javascript would click on the "Selenium" tag on the top right of this page (next to your question), even if it were hidden (hypothetically).

All you need to do is issue this JS instruction via the JavascriptExecutor interface like so:

(JavascriptExecutor(webdriver)).executeScript("document.getElementsByClassName('post-tag')[0].click();");

This would use the JS sandbox and synthetic click event to perform the click action. Although it defeats the purpose of WebDriver user activity simulation, you can use it in niche scenarios like in your case to good effect.

Upvotes: 14

Prashant Shukla
Prashant Shukla

Reputation: 1389

there is one answer but multiple suggestions:

Answer: use selenium backed driver to click on the hidden element using something like

Selenium selenium = new WebDriverBackedSelenium(driver, baseUrl);
selenium.clickAt("xpath=//area[@alt='Mercury']", clickPoint);

Suggestion 1: to create fake data specially if there's a lot to be created and you are looking for FOSS go for JMeter.

Suggestion2: to check javascript turned off disable javascript in the firefox instance itself e.g.

DesiredCapabilities capabilities = DesiredCapabilities.firefox();
capabilities.setJavascriptEnabled(false);

Upvotes: 1

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