CODEWITHSUNDEEP
seleniumselenium-webdriver
HoBa
HoBa

Reputation: 3604

How to change browser mode on IE with selenium?

I'm trying to run a different browser mode on IE with selenium using c#. Here's some code:

var ieWebDriver = new InternetExplorerDriver(@"PATHTOWEBDRIVER");
ieWebDriver.Keyboard.SendKeys(Keys.F12);

ieWebDriver.Keyboard.SendKeys(Keys.LeftAlt);
ieWebDriver.Keyboard.SendKeys("b");
ieWebDriver.Keyboard.SendKeys(Keys.NumberPad7);

I can open the developer tools (f12) but I'm not able to change the browser mode. Is IE preventing this due security? if so, are there any other ways to render content with a lower IE version?

thanks

Upvotes: 2

Views: 8457

Answers (2)

Miro
Miro

Reputation: 101

Selenium supports cross-browser testing of different versions of the same browser, but it is not achieved by switching the version in the Browser Mode in F12 Tools.

See https://code.google.com/p/selenium/wiki/Grid2

You can set up virtual machines with different versions of IE that work as Selenium nodes and use Selenium Hub to connect to them. Let's say you have a virtual machine with Windows 7 which has IE9 installed. You would start a Selenium node there and specify that it accepts requests for IE9 tests. You would then create InternetExplorerDriver for version 9, connect to the hub and run the test. The hub finds out the node with IE9 and runs the test there.

Related post here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/8524216/1080590

This is of course different to what you're trying to do on a single machine, but it's more reliable and prevents you from extra management of your local IE instance.

Upvotes: 0

Arran
Arran

Reputation: 25056

No. The IEDriver is going to launch whatever IE is installed on the machine.

Changing the 'browser mode' is not a true representation of that version you are changing it to. IE9 on IE7 Standards Mode is not a true version of IE7.

Thus, you are stuck in a problem. You want to test different versions of IE, how do you do it?

The problem is that Windows let's you only have one IE version on a Windows PC at any one time. Yes, there are hacks and programs around to get multiple versions (IE5 and above) to run on a single machine, but they are hacks. Hacks which are not going to work all that well, and still, even with this, you wouldn't even be able to give the IEDriverServer the flexiblity to do this.

You will have to have seperate Windows machines.

A workaround, which again is a hack, is to set browser emulation mode in the registry, as documented in SO question.

Note that in the above question, the accepted answer is not going to work but the other answer may do. As note the comment on that answer, is by the maintainer of the IEDriver itself, advising strongly against this.

Another workaround, I have not tested, is perhaps use the native C# Keyboard.SendKeys, as documented here in MSDN. Am unsure if it will work (don't think anyone has ever ried it), but it is another option.

Upvotes: 3

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