Implement generic wait for element when testing with selenium instead of implicit wait

util.py

import time
import unittest
from hamcrest import assert_that, contains_string
from selenium.common.exceptions import WebDriverException
from selenium.webdriver import Chrome


def wait_for_element(browser, method_name, selector, max_wait=10):
    start_time = time.time()
    while True:
        try:
            elm = getattr(browser, method_name)(selector)
            return elm
        except WebDriverException as err:
            if time.time() - start_time > max_wait:
                raise err
            time.sleep(0.5)

# Example Usage
class ExampleTesCase(unittest.TestCase):
    def setUp(self):
        self.browser = Chrome()

    def tearDown(self):
        self.browser.quit()

    def test_hello_message(self):
        self.browser.get('http://localhost:8000')
        by_tag = self.browser.find_element_by_tag_name.__name__
        h1 = wait_for_element(self.browser, by_tag, 'h1')
        assert_that(h1.text, contains_string('Hello World')

Inspired by testing goat. I use this frequently when testing using behave