Checking an element's presence

The Selenium WebDriver doesn't implement Selenium RC's isElementPresent() method for checking if an element is present on a page. This method is useful for building a reliable test where you can check an element's presence before performing any action on it.

In this recipe, we will write a method similar to the isElementPresent() method.

How to do it...

For implementing the isElementPresent() method, follow these steps:

1. Create a method isElementPresent() and keep it accessible to your tests as follows:

   private boolean isElementPresent(By by) {
       try {
           driver.findElement(by);
           return true;
       } catch (NoSuchElementException e) {
           return false;
       }
   }

2. Implement a test which calls the isElementPresent() method. It will check if the desired element is present on a page; if found then it clicks on the element, else fails the test. This is done as follows:

   @Test
   public void testIsElementPresent()
   {
       //Check if element with locator criteria...