What is Conductor?

At its core, Conductor is just a wrapper for the Selenium WebDriver API.

Conductor…

  1. uses the concept of fluent interfaces to create very fluid, and easy to read/write tests.

  2. abstracts the tester from annoying implicit explicit waits. Conductor will wait at a pre-specified time to make sure something has appeared, and is ready to be interacted with.

  3. comes packaged with tons of validation methods that are commonly used with testing:
    • validateText
    • validateTextNot
    • validateChecked
    • validateUnchecked
    • validatePresent
    • validateNotPresent
    • validateTextPresent
    • validateTextNotPresent
    • validateTrue
    • validateFalse
    • …
  4. also comes bundled with all the actions you’ll need:
    • click()
    • setText()
    • check()
    • uncheck()
    • selectOptionByValue()
    • selectOptionByText()
    • navigateTo()
    • isPresent()
    • getText()
    • hoverOver()
    • getAttribute()
    • goBack()
    • switchToWindow()
    • waitForWindow()
    • …

  5. reveals the base driver object, so you can, if you so choose, still use the methods provided from driver (driver.findElement(), etc)

  6. is extremely easy for new QA engineers to use. Little programming knowledge is required to understand the concept behind Conductor.

Why `Conductor’?

Much like any other software package out there, Conductor is a just a play on words.

The concept stems from the concept of a train conductor. A train conductor is the one that is responsible for the operational duties upon a train. Much like a train, the Conductor selenium framework is responsible for the operational duties of your automated testing.

You may have noticed that the base class that you extend from, is called Locomotive. This also is, of course, another play on words. In the world of Object Oriented Programming, a class can extend and inherit methods, properties, etc from a super class. Much like a train… your tests will extend from the Locomotive (the front engine of a train) and the Locomotive will pull you forward.

Also, much like WebDriver drives the web, Conductor drives your tests.

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