Can Selenium be used for .NET applications?

Last Updated : 13 Nov, 2024

Selenium, a leading platform in the field of web application testing, promises to carry out automation across multiple browsers. When implemented on .NET, it enhances web application testing.

In this article, we will see set up of selenium in Visual Studio 2022, and a simple test case will also be created using the NUnit framework.

Prerequisites

Visual Studio 2022: That is, the most accommodating integrated development environment for any .NET tasks.
Selenium WebDriver: The authoritative drivers for the browsers.
To start using Selenium there are several packages that you have to download.

Step By Step Process of Selenium for .NET applications

Step 1: Create a New Project

Launch Visual Studio.
Click on Create a new project.

In the search box of the Create a new project pop-up, type NUnit.
Select NUnit Test Project (.NET Core) from the search results.

Select NUnit Test Project (.NET Core) from the search results. — Select NUnit Test Project (.NET Core) from the search results

Enter a Project name and select a Location. Click Create to proceed.

Enter a Project name and select a Location. Click Create to proceed

Step 2: Install Required Packages

Once your NUnit (.NET Core) project is set up, you will have the Setup and Test methods provided by default. Choose the Tools and then the NuGet Package Manager and subsequently the Package Manager Console.
Go to the Tools menu and then select the NuGet Package Manager followed by the Package Manager Console.

In the Package Manager Console, execute the following commands to install Selenium WebDriver and the NUnit framework.

For Firefox:

Install-Package Selenium.WebDriver Install-Package Selenium.Firefox.WebDriver

For Chrome:

Install-Package Selenium.WebDriver Install-Package Selenium.Chrome.WebDriver

For NUnit:

Install-Package NUnit Install-Package NUnit3TestAdapter

To check the installation status of the packages, run the following command:

Get-Package

Step 3: Write Your First Selenium Test

Now that all necessary packages are installed, you can write your first test case.
Replace the contents of your test class with the following code:

using NUnit.Framework;
using OpenQA.Selenium;
using OpenQA.Selenium.Firefox; // Change to Chrome if using ChromeDriver
using System;

namespace FirstSeleniumTest
{
    public class Tests
    {
        private string u = "https://www.geeksforgeeks.com/index.htm";
        private IWebDriver d;

        [SetUp]
        public void Setup()
        {
            // Creating object of FirefoxDriver
            d = new FirefoxDriver();
        }

        [Test]
        public void Test1()
        {
            // Launching URL
            d.Navigate().GoToUrl(u);
            Console.WriteLine("URL launched");
            // Add an assertion to verify the URL or page title
            Assert.That(d.Url, Is.EqualTo(u), "The URL did not launch as expected.");
        }

        [TearDown]
        public void CloseBrowser()
        {
            if (d != null)
            {
                d.Quit();
                d.Dispose(); // Ensures the WebDriver instance is properly disposed
            }
        }
    }
}

This code sets up the Firefox browser, navigates to the specified URL, and then closes the browser after the test.

Step 4: Build the Solution

Go to terminal and run this command.

Go to terminal and run this command. — Build the Solution

Step 5: Run the Tests

Open the Test Explorer by going to Test > Test Explorer.
In the Test Explorer, you should see your tests listed. Click on Run All to execute the tests.