Why Intellij IDEA is better than Eclipse?

There are "eternal" questions that have no single correct answer. E.g. what is better: Windows or Linux, Java or C#; who is stronger, IDEA or Eclipse......

One of such holywars is selection of the best Java IDE:

  

There is a lot of disputes on this topic discussing which of them has more plugins, shortkeys and so on. There is so many differences that it's difficult to decide what of them are the most important. As a result, people typically claim that both IDEs are equal in their capabilities, and choosing of one of them is a matter of taste.

 am going to show just one major differencebetween IDEA and Eclipse.

The main difference between IDEA and Eclipse

The main reason why IDEA is steeper is: IDEA feels context. That's what JetBrains employees mean when they name IDEA intelligent. What it really means? IDEA indexes the whole your project, analyses everything it has, and even builds the syntax tree.

Still not clear? Do not worry, it will become clear in the following examples.

This ability to understand the context is expressed in many, many ways, here are just a few.

1. Debugging

As a part of debugging process, we often want to evaluate some expression to see its value. In Eclipse you need to select this expression. It's important to exactly select the whole expression, otherwise Eclipse cannot evaluate it. Now you press Ctrl+Shift+I and see the value of expression.

With IDEA you don't need to select anything. You just put cursor at any place inside your expression (at method hasAttribute in given case) and press Alt+F8. IDEA understands which expression you probably need and shows a dialog window suggesting several possible variants for your expression. You can also edit and immediatelly evaluate the expression in this dialog. Very convenient! After trying this feature, you just cannot debug in Eclipse anymore. 

It turns out that both IDEs, in principle, allow you to do the same thing. But with IDEA it's much easier and faster. I'm serious, the difference is huge - it's just Heaven and Earth. In this small dialog window IDEA will provide autofilling, syntax highlighting and everything you need.

2. Autocomplete

Autocomplete is what distinguishes any IDE from the notepad. In this area feeling the context gives IDEA a qualitative advantage. For example, we started writing a line of code:

view sourceprint?

1.assertElement(By.id("errorMessage"), vi

and now we want to find what options do we have: what can start with letters "vi".

What IDEA does? Not waiting for any keystrokes, it immediatelly understands that method assertElement wants an Condition class instance as a second parameter, and there is a static variable in class Condition with name visible. And IDEA immediatelly suggests the only valid option: 

And what Eclipse does? Alas, it does not understand the context. It does not know that the cursor is located where the second parameter of the method assertElement should place. So when you press the sacred Ctrl + Space, Eclipse simply shows everything in Universe that begins with the letters "vi":

In a beautiful pop-up window we see a lot of pretty-highlighted well-documented useless information. :(

3. Refactoring

Professional programmers are able to be productive using refactorings provided by their IDE. All modern IDE offer a very impressive set of refactorings. 

For example, suppose we have a method assertErrorMessageIsHidden:

view sourceprint?

1.public void assertErrorMessageIsHidden() {

2.assertElement(By.id("errorMessage"), Condition.visible);

3.}

and we want the String "errorMessage" to come as a parameter to this method.

Let's start from IDEA. Put the cursor to any place inside the string "errorMessage", press Ctrl+Alt+P (meaning "parameter"), and IDEA suggests what expression we probably could extract to a parameter:

As soon as the expression "errorMessage" is selected, IDEA suggests several possible names for this parameter. 

Do not forget: select the entire expression "errorMessage" (always with quotes, or get a wild message "An expression must be select to activate this refactoring"), choose a refactoring "Introduce parameter" (from the menu, there is no hot key) and get about the same result. However, Eclipse doesn't suggest options for a parameter name,

 

Conclusion

If we are choosing a Java IDE then Intellij IDEA is definitely better than Eclipse. It's not just a matter of taste. IDEA is objectively better. It lets you to quickly and easily write and change the code, suggests appropriate names, finds the appropriate methods. It does not require you to exactly select the expressions, but guesses what you want to do and how you wanted to name it. IDEA anticipates and suggests.

Selenium webdriver with maven

Selenium webdriver with maven

In today's post I would like to explain how we can quick start a selenium Java project using Maven. The term Maven may not be very familiar to many of the testers but widely used by Java developers. We can create a Selenium project without using Maven. Then why there is so much buzz about this magic word "Maven"? Let me explain how Maven can help testers to a great extend.

1) Dependency management - 

If you are not using maven you need to manage all the dependencies in your project manually. For example you are referring to selenium web driver version 2.31.0 in your project. So you may need to download the corresponding jar file before using it. Maven will do the same task for us. We just need to add the dependency in pom.xml file and rest maven will take care. Tomorrow if you want to use latest version of selenium just make the entry in pom.xml file, that's it.

2) Folder management - 

Maven creates a specific folder structure in the project one for keeping everything related to development and one for test. Since your base level folder structure is already created, we can easily customized this as per our need.

3) Plugin support - 

Maven provides lots of useful plugins which testers can use like for generating reports, creating documentations, configuring emails etc.

4) Integration with CI system - 

If you have requirements like integrating your tests in a CI system, maven can make your life easy.

Creating a simple java maven project for writing selenium test:
Installation:
Install maven eclipse plugin following the below steps:
Go to Help>Install New Software in eclipse IDE
Add "http://download.eclipse.org/technology/m2e/releases/1.0" in Work with
Follow the installation wizard.

Create a maven project:
1. File > New > Project
2. Select Maven project under Maven folder
3. Check the checkbox "Create simple project" and click on Next
4. Add the necessary details and click on Finish

After step 4 above, your sample maven project will be created.

Configure pom.xml file:
Open the pom.xml file. Default pom.xml file may look like this:

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
  <groupId>test</groupId>
  <artifactId>test</artifactId>
  <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
</project>
Now we need to add the dependencies we need for selenium.

For example:
<!-- Add all your test dependency here-->
  <dependencies>
  <!-- selenium dependency -->
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.seleniumhq.selenium</groupId>
      <artifactId>selenium-java</artifactId>
      <version>2.39.0</version>
    </dependency>

    <!-- testNG dependency -->
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.testng</groupId>
      <artifactId>testng</artifactId>
      <version>6.1.1</version>
    </dependency>
       <dependencies>

And you are all set to try your first test using selenium webdriver and testNG.

Adding test classes:
You can add your test classes under src -> test -> java folder.
Do not forget to add "Test" word in your test class name. Maven picks only those test classes which has test word in name for running.

Running your test classes:
Once you add your test case, now you should be able to run the same as below:
1. Right click on the project folder.
2. Select "Run as" menu
3. Select "Maven test" menu

If everything goes well, you should be able to see your selenium tests running successfully. 

 Why Corss Browser Testing is necessary:

Basically, it is important to test your website in relation to 'Cross Browser Compatibility'. What this means is that no matter which browser your target customers are using to view your website (Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, Chrome etc) the site will look and function the same way.





Do you know what your business website looks like when viewed in Firefox? Netscape? Safari? Opera?

Do the pages look consistent with the display you see in Internet Explorer?

If not, how many customers do you think you are losing or alienating on a daily basis due to improper page rendering in non-dominant browsers?

Many website developers neglect crossbrowser testing due to either inexperience or to effect development project cost savings. Nothing is more frustrating to a prospect visiting your site than a broken page that does not render properly. What if that next big sale could have come from a prospect using Safari on the Mac, but because you failed to ask your website developer for crossbrowser testing, you site doesn’t render correctly in that browser and you lose the sale?

It is true that the Internet Explorer browser currently enjoys the largest marketshare at 58.5%. However, this leaves over 40% of your potential market utilizing other browsers.

• Internet Explorer (6, 7, 8): 30.4%
• Firefox: 46.4%
• Chrome: 16.7%
• Safari: 3.4%
• Opera 2.3%

Since there is no definitive way to determine the mix of browser/operating system combinations that your customers may be using, the only way to maximize broad market access to your website is to plan ahead and ensure that your website has been cross-browser and platform tested by your website developer. This approach may cost a bit more but the benefits can include:

• Consistent, stable cross-browser/platform rendering and functionality on all website pages - higher quality website
• Simplified website maintenance and updates
• Ease of use/viewing for end-users (your customers!)
• Increased customer conversion ratio
• Your prospects will know that you value quality