Recording your first test with Selenium IDE

We will record our first test using Selenium IDE. To start recording the tests, we will need to start Mozilla Firefox. Once it has been loaded, you will need to start Selenium IDE. You will find it under the Tools drop-down menu in Mozilla Firefox or in the Web Developer drop-down menu. Once loaded, it will look like the next screenshot. Note that the record button is engaged when you first load the IDE.

To start recording your tests, let's do the following:

1. When in the record mode, navigate to http://book.theautomatedtester.co.uk/chapter1.
2. On the web application, do the following:
   1. Click on the record button (red-colored radio button).
   2. Select another value from the drop-down box, for example, Selenium RC.
   3. Click on the Home Page link.
   
3. Your test has now been recorded and should look like the preceding screenshot.
4. Click the play button that looks like this icon:
5. Once your test has completed, it will look like the following screenshot:
   

We have successfully recorded our first test and played it back. As we can see, Selenium IDE tried to apply the first rule of test automation by specifying the open command. It set the starting point of the test, in this case, /chapter1, and then it began stepping through the workflow that we want to record.

Once the actions have all been completed, you will see that all of the actions have a green background. This shows that they have completed successfully. On the left, you will see that it has completed one successful test, or run, within Selenium IDE. If you were to write a test that failed, the Failure label will have a 1 next to it.