As you know, Selenium WebDriver is the most popular and user-friendly framework for test automation, which is commonly used by many companies. This product has open-source code and a large list of functions that helps any user integrate into the features of Selenium in the shortest possible time.

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Nevertheless, using all of Selenium WebDriver’s features seems to be a very difficult task, especially for those specialists who do not have sufficient programming knowledge. At the same time, working with Katalon Studio and Selenium allows you to quickly master the latter, regardless of your programming skills.

In this article, we will talk about using Katalon Studio as a solution to the most well-known Selenium problem, namely defects in timelines.

How the Timing Problems in Selenium Occur

Nowadays, JS and Ajax front-end technologies are the most popular practices for making web applications. But the moment of readiness to display elements on the page in such technologies is not obvious, even when the web browser pages are completely loaded.

For example, it happens that:

• Some web elements are not modeled;
• Elements are overlapped on the waiting spinner;
• Information is processed slowly in user-generated Ajax requests.

Skilled automated testers will see that these are really serious problems that require manual control. Using Selenium does not always allow smooth and quick developing a proper test structure. You need to look for a third-party solution.

Katalon Smart Wait as a Solution for Slow Web Page Loading

Katalon developers recently released a new product – Katalon Smart Wait – which was officially included in build 7 (and was preliminarily tested by a closed group of global software testing companies). This is the software that allows you to solve Selenium timing problems quickly and efficiently, without using auxiliary scripts. Katalon Smart Wait is programmed to wait for all processes on the page to complete before proceeding to the next objects.

Smart Wait is easy to use and can be configured to handle either the entire project or its parts. This is very useful and convenient, so as not to delay the automatic processing of external program code by the program.

For example, when automated testers put batch execution on overnight, unexpected failures and defects can harm the entire testing process, causing a technical failure. And given that there is no one to press the restart button at night, the whole system stops, and testing time is postponed.

With Smart Wait, there are no such problems because the system automatically monitors the test environment (acceleration of the CI/CD pipeline). Smart Wait stores execution history, allows you to analyze product performance patterns, and reduce the financial cost of common automation processes within a single project group.

How to Use Smart Wait to Adjust the Timing?

To quickly activate Smart Wait for a test project, go to Project > Settings > Execution and disable Default Smart Wait.

And as for working with the smart wait parameter among the elements of the script, it is necessary to perform all the same manipulations described above, but in reverse order (activate the Disable Default Smart Wait menu).

[highlight dark=”no”]Note: [/highlight]To avoid constantly referring to the graphical menu interface, you can use special commands (enableSmartWait / disableSmartWait), that allow you to enable and disable the timing parameters during testing.

Summary

The introduction of Smart Wait timing parameters is a very practical and useful thing. After all, a set of such functionality will allow users to solve time-waiting problems, achieve test stability, and work in an environment of continuous automated test running and delivery of the finished product online! With this feature, the whole Katalon Studio set stands out significantly among similar modern software.