Page Object Model & Factory in Selenium

What is Page Object Model? What are its Key Components?

Page Object Model (POM) is a design pattern, popularly used in test automation, that creates an Object Repository for web UI elements. The advantage of the model is that it reduces code duplication and improves test maintenance.

Under this model, for each web page in the application, there should be a corresponding Page Class. This Page class will identify the WebElements of that web page and also contains Page methods that perform operations on those WebElements. The names of these methods should be given as per the task they are performing, i.e., if a loader is waiting for the payment gateway to appear, the POM method name can be waitForPaymentScreenDisplay().

Key Components of Page Object Model

• Page Classes: Represent each web page as a separate class.
• Locators: Identify web elements using IDs, XPaths, or CSS selectors.
• Methods: Contain actions or operations performed on the .page elements.
• Reusability: Promotes code reuse and easier maintenance across tests.
• Separation of Concerns: Keeps page structure independent from test logic for better organization.

Why Page Object Model?

Starting a UI automation in Selenium WebDriver is NOT a tough task. You just need to find elements and perform operations on them.

Consider this simple script to log in to a website.

As you can observe, all we are doing is finding elements and filling values for those elements.

This is a time-consuming script, error-prone. It seems easy initially, but as the test suite expands, managing element changes becomes difficult. But with time, the test suite will grow. As you add more and more lines to your code, things become tough.

The chief problem with script maintenance is that if 10 different scripts are using the same page element, with any change in that element, you need to change all 10 scripts. This is time consuming and error prone.

A better approach to script maintenance is to create a separate class file that would find web elements, fill them or verify them. This class can then be reused across multiple test scripts that interact with the same element. In future, if there is a change in the web element, we need to make the change in just 1 class file and not 10 different scripts.

This approach is called Page Object Model in Selenium. It helps make the code more readable, maintainable, and reusable.

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Advantages of POM

1. Page Object Design Pattern says operations and flows in the UI should be separated from verification. This concept makes our code cleaner and easy to understand.
2. The Second benefit is that the object repository is independent of test cases, so we can use the same object repository for a different purpose with different tools. For example, we can integrate Page Object Model in Selenium with TestNG/JUnit for functional Testing and at the same time with JBehave/Cucumber for acceptance testing.
3. Code becomes less and optimized because it reuses page methods in the POM classes.
4. Methods get more realistic names that can be easily mapped to the operation happening in the UI. i.e. if after clicking on the button we land on the home page, the method name will be like ‘gotoHomePage()’.

How to implement POM in Selenium?

Simple PLog in the foundational structure of a Page Object Model framework, where the whereManagereIDElements of the AUT and the method that operate on these Web Elements are maintained inside a clog file. A task like verification should be separate as part of Test methods.

Complete Example

TestCase: Go to Guru99 Demo Site.

Step 1) Go to Guru99 Demo Site

Step 2) On the home page, check that the text “Guru99 Bank” is present

Step 3) Login into application

Step 4) Verify that the Home page contains text as “Manger Id: demo”

In this example, we are dealing with two pages:

1. Login Page
2. Home Page (shown once you login)

Accordingly, we create 2 POM in Selenium classes

Guru99 Login page POM

package pages;

import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
public class Guru99Login {
    WebDriver driver;
    By user99GuruName = By.name("uid");
    By password99Guru = By.name("password");
    By titleText =By.className("barone");
    By login = By.name("btnLogin");
    public Guru99Login(WebDriver driver){
        this.driver = driver;
    }
    //Set user name in textbox
    public void setUserName(String strUserName){
        driver.findElement(user99GuruName).sendKeys(strUserName);
    }
    //Set password in password textbox
    public void setPassword(String strPassword){
         driver.findElement(password99Guru).sendKeys(strPassword);
    }
    //Click on the login button
    public void clickLogin(){
            driver.findElement(login).click();
    }
    //Get the title of Login Page
    public String getLoginTitle(){
     return    driver.findElement(titleText).getText();
    }
    /**
     * This POM method allows the test case to perform the login operation
     * @param strUserName
     * @param strPasword
     * @return
     */
    public void loginToGuru99(String strUserName,String strPasword){
        //Fill user name
        this.setUserName(strUserName);
        //Fill password
        this.setPassword(strPasword);
        //Click Login button
        this.clickLogin();        
    }
}

Guru99 Home Page POM in Selenium

package pages;
import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
public class Guru99HomePage {
    WebDriver driver;
    By homePageUserName = By.xpath("//table//tr[@class='heading3']");
    public Guru99HomePage(WebDriver driver){
        this.driver = driver;
    }
    //Get the User name from Home Page
        public String getHomePageDashboardUserName(){
         return    driver.findElement(homePageUserName).getText();
        }
}

Guru99 Simple POM in Selenium Test case

package test;
import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver;
import org.testng.Assert;
import org.testng.annotations.BeforeTest;
import org.testng.annotations.Test;
import pages.Guru99HomePage;
import pages.Guru99Login;
public class Test99GuruLogin {
    String driverPath = "C:\\geckodriver.exe";    
    WebDriver driver;
    Guru99Login objLogin;
    Guru99HomePage objHomePage;
    @BeforeTest
    public void setup(){
	System.setProperty("webdriver.gecko.driver", driverPath);        
        driver = new FirefoxDriver();
        driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(10, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
        driver.get("https://demo.guru99.com/V4/");
    }
    /**
     * This test case will login in https://demo.guru99.com/V4/
     * Verify login page title as guru99 bank
     * Login to application
     * Verify the home page using Dashboard message
     */
    @Test(priority=0)
    public void test_Home_Page_Appear_Correct(){
        //Create Login Page object
    objLogin = new Guru99Login(driver);
    //Verify login page title
    String loginPageTitle = objLogin.getLoginTitle();
    Assert.assertTrue(loginPageTitle.toLowerCase().contains("guru99 bank"));
    //login to application
    objLogin.loginToGuru99("mgr123", "mgr!23");
    // go the next page
    objHomePage = new Guru99HomePage(driver);
    //Verify home page
    Assert.assertTrue(objHomePage.getHomePageDashboardUserName().toLowerCase().contains("manager id : mgr123"));
    }

What is Page Factory in Selenium?

Page Factory in Selenium is an inbuilt Page Object Model framework concept for Selenium WebDriver that improves maintainability by reducing repetitive element lookups using annotations, not by execution speed. It is used for initialization of Page objects or to instantiate the Page object itself. It is also used to initialize Page class elements without using “FindElement/s.”

Here as well, we follow the concept of separation of Page Object Repository and Test Methods. Additionally, with the help of class PageFactory in Selenium, we use annotations @FindBy to find WebElement. We use initElements method to initialize web elements.

@FindBy can accept tagName, partialLinkText, name, linkText, id, css, className, xpath as attributes.

Let’s look at the same example as above using Page Factory

Guru99 Login page with Page Factory

package PageFactory;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebElement;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.FindBy;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.PageFactory;
public class Guru99Login {
    /**
     * All WebElements are identified by @FindBy annotation
     */
    WebDriver driver;
    @FindBy(name="uid")
    WebElement user99GuruName;
    @FindBy(name="password")
    WebElement password99Guru;    
    @FindBy(className="barone")
    WebElement titleText;
    @FindBy(name="btnLogin")
    WebElement login;
    public Guru99Login(WebDriver driver){
        this.driver = driver;
        //This initElements method will create all WebElements
        PageFactory.initElements(driver, this);
    }
    //Set user name in textbox
    public void setUserName(String strUserName){
        user99GuruName.sendKeys(strUserName);     
    }
    //Set password in password textbox
    public void setPassword(String strPassword){
    password99Guru.sendKeys(strPassword);
    }
    //Click on login button
    public void clickLogin(){
            login.click();

    }  
    //Get the title of Login Page
    public String getLoginTitle(){
     return    titleText.getText();
    }
    /**
     * This POM method will be exposed in test case to login in the application
     * @param strUserName
     * @param strPasword
     * @return
     */
    public void loginToGuru99(String strUserName,String strPasword){
        //Fill user name
        this.setUserName(strUserName);
        //Fill password
        this.setPassword(strPasword);
        //Click Login button
        this.clickLogin();           
    }
}

Guru99 Home Page with Page Factory

package PageFactory;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebElement;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.FindBy;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.PageFactory;
public class Guru99HomePage {
    WebDriver driver;
    @FindBy(xpath="//table//tr[@class='heading3']")
    WebElement homePageUserName;    
    public Guru99HomePage(WebDriver driver){
        this.driver = driver;
        //This initElements method will create all WebElements
        PageFactory.initElements(driver, this);
    }   
    //Get the User name from Home Page
        public String getHomePageDashboardUserName(){
         return    homePageUserName.getText();
        }
}

Guru99 TestCase with Page Factory concept

package test;
import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver;
import org.testng.Assert;
import org.testng.annotations.BeforeTest;
import org.testng.annotations.Test;
import PageFactory.Guru99HomePage;
import PageFactory.Guru99Login;
public class Test99GuruLoginWithPageFactory {
    String driverPath = "C:\\geckodriver.exe";    
    WebDriver driver;
    Guru99Login objLogin;
    Guru99HomePage objHomePage; 
    @BeforeTest
    public void setup(){
        System.setProperty("webdriver.gecko.driver", driverPath);       
        driver = new FirefoxDriver();
        driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(10, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
        driver.get("https://demo.guru99.com/V4/");
    }
    /**
     * This test go to https://demo.guru99.com/V4/
     * Verify login page title as guru99 bank
     * Login to application
     * Verify the home page using Dashboard message
     */
    @Test(priority=0)
    public void test_Home_Page_Appear_Correct(){
        //Create Login Page object
    objLogin = new Guru99Login(driver);
    //Verify login page title
    String loginPageTitle = objLogin.getLoginTitle();
    Assert.assertTrue(loginPageTitle.toLowerCase().contains("guru99 bank"));
    //login to application
    objLogin.loginToGuru99("mgr123", "mgr!23");
    // go the next page
    objHomePage = new Guru99HomePage(driver);
    //Verify home page
    Assert.assertTrue(objHomePage.getHomePageDashboardUserName().toLowerCase().contains("manager id : mgr123"));
    }
}

Complete Project Structure will look like the diagram:

AjaxElementLocatorFactory

AjaxElementLocatorFactory is a lazy loading concept of PageFactory in Selenium. It is used to find the web elements only when the elements are used in any operation. It assigns a timeout for WebElements to the object page class. One of the key advantages of using the PageFactory pattern in Selenium is AjaxElementLocatorFactory Class.

Here, when an operation is performed on an element, the wait for its visibility starts from that moment only. If the element is not found in the given time interval, Test Case execution will throw ‘NoSuchElementException’ exception.

For example:

AjaxElementLocatorFactory factory = new AjaxElementLocatorFactory(driver, 10);
PageFactory.initElements(factory, this);

Download the Selenium Project Files for the Demo in this Tutorial

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