This Wiki page explains how to use ChromeDriver and Selenium to automate CEF-based applications.

Note to Editors: Changes made to this Wiki page without prior approval via the CEF Forum or Issue Tracker may be lost or reverted.

Overview

ChromeDriver and Selenium are tools for automated testing of Chromium-based applications. The tests themselves can be written in a number of languages including Java, JavaScript and Python. ChromeDriver communicates with the Chromium-based application using the DevTools remote debugging protocol (configured via the --remote-debugging-port=XXXX command-line flag passed to the application). Detailed ChromeDriver/Selenium usage information is available here:

Java Tutorial

This tutorial demonstrates how to control the cefclient sample application using the Java programming language on Windows. Usage on other platforms and with other CEF-based applications is substantially similar.

1. Install the Java JDK and add its bin directory to your system PATH variable.

2. Create a directory that will contain all files. This tutorial uses c:\temp.

3. Download ChromeDriver from https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/chromedriver/downloads and extract (e.g. chromedriver_win32.zip provides chomedriver.exe). This tutorial was tested with version 2.14.

4. Download selenium-server-standalone-x.y.z.jar from http://selenium-release.storage.googleapis.com/index.html. This tutorial was tested with version 2.44.0.

5. Download a CEF binary distribution client from Downloads and extract (e.g. cef_binary_3.2171.1979_windows32_client.7z).

6. Create Example.java:

import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebElement;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeOptions;

public class Example  {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    // Path to the ChromeDriver executable.
    System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "c:/temp/chromedriver.exe");

    ChromeOptions options = new ChromeOptions();
    // Path to the CEF executable.
    options.setBinary("c:/temp/cef_binary_3.2171.1979_windows32_client/Release/cefclient.exe");
    // Port to communicate on. Required starting with ChromeDriver v2.41.
    options.addArguments("remote-debugging-port=12345");

    WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver(options);
    driver.get("http://www.google.com/xhtml");
    sleep(3000);  // Let the user actually see something!
    WebElement searchBox = driver.findElement(By.name("q"));
    searchBox.sendKeys("ChromeDriver");
    searchBox.submit();
    sleep(3000);  // Let the user actually see something!
    driver.quit();
  }

  static void sleep(int time) {
    try { Thread.sleep(time); } catch (InterruptedException e) {}
  }
}

Your directory structure should now look similar to this:

c:\temp\
  cef_binary_3.2171.1979_windows32_client\
    Release\
      cefclient.exe  (and other files)
  chromedriver.exe
  Example.java
  selenium-server-standalone-2.44.0.jar

7. Compile Example.java to generate Example.class:

> cd c:\temp
> javac -cp ".;*" Example.java

8. Run the example:

> cd c:\temp
> java -cp ".;*" Example

When the example is run ChromeDriver will:

Output to the console:

Starting ChromeDriver 2.14.313457 (3d645c400edf2e2c500566c9aa096063e707c9cf) on port 28110
Only local connections are allowed.

Launch cefclient.exe.
Submit a Google search for "ChromeDriver".
Close cefclient.exe.