Thoughts on Selenium Explicit VS Implicit Waits

test_wait.py

from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC
from selenium.common.exceptions import NoSuchElementException


class BaseTestClass(object):
    def __init__(self, driver):
        self.wait = WebDriverWait(driver, 5, .25, (NoSuchElementException,))

    def find_element_by_css_selector(self, selector, expected_condition=None):
        expected_condition = expected_condition or EC.presence_of_element_located
        return self.wait.until(expected_condition((By.CSS_SELECTOR, '.test')))


class TestFoo(BaseTestClass):
    def test_foo(self):
        # Implicit waits and Explicit waits should no be mixed
        # http://docs.seleniumhq.org/docs/04_webdriver_advanced.jsp

        # Existing implicit wait

        # Suffers from the flaw returning when an element is immediately available
        # In the case of ajax you may want to wait for a condition
        # such as waiting for a loading icon to go away
        element = self.driver.find_element_by_css_selector('.loaded-ajax')

        # So something like this is needed
        # although I'm not sure this will always work in angular
        # the text may not always be rendered instantaneously
        self.wait.until_not(EC.visibility_of(element))

        # Something like this may work instead
        self.wait.until_not(EC.text_to_be_present_in_element((By.CSS_SELECTOR, '.value-im-looking-for'), '0'))

        # Since they should not be mixed we should find a strategy for using explicit waits
        # to locate elements in our tests that are not dependant on ajax calls

        # This is the default explicit wait invocation
        element = self.wait.until(EC.presence_of_element_located((By.CSS_SELECTOR, '#mainContainer')))

        # This is if we created our own helper functions to wrap explicit waits
        # It would reduce boilerplate most of the time (defaults to presence)
        element = self.find_element_by_css_selector('#mainContainer')
        element = self.find_element_by_css_selector('#mainContainer', EC.visibility_of)

        self.assertEqual(element.text, '1')