My environment for Selenium 2.0 (WebDriver)

One thing I believe to be very important for any sort of software development (and test automation with Selenium is software development) is having a good environment. So here is how I set up my environment to start with Selenium 2.0 and Java.

What you need:

1. Java (go to  http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/index.html)
1. I typically go with Java SE 1.6.0. If you don't need the latest, go with something more mature.
2. Download the full SDK and docs.
3. Install them in C:\jdk1.6.0_30 (assuming you downloaded build 30)
4. I like to put it in the root of the C drive with no spaces in case other things don't like spaces.
5. Unpack the docs into the same directory so they are easy to find. 
2. Eclipse (go to  http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/)
1. I typically go with Eclipse IDE for Java Developers because it has everything for Selenium and it is small.
3. SVN (go to  http://subversion.apache.org/)
1. You need some sort of source control.
2. I usually go with Git but more people are still using Subversion.
3. There are more tutorials on SVN and better support.
4. Selenium (go to  http://code.google.com/p/selenium/downloads/list)
1. You'll need to download:
1. selenium-java-2.19.0.zip (or whatever the latest version is)
2. selenium-server-standalone-2.19.0.jar (or whatever the latest version is)
2. Unpack the zip file to some location
1. I'll typically unzip them into the workspace for the project
2. I'll also put the jar file in the same location
3. This way I can add the jar files to subversion
5. Eclipse support for SVN (go to  http://subclipse.tigris.org/ )
1. Normally I would suggest using Marketplace from the Help menu but not for the latest SVN client.
2. I like subclipse for an SVN client.
3. Once on the subclipse site go to download and install.
4. Copy the link for Eclipse Update Site URL for 1.8.x
5. Go to Eclipse Help->Install New Software...
6. Click Add...
1. Name: subclipse 1.8.x
2. Location: the update site URL you copied above.
7. Select all
8. Unselect Mylyn 3.x if you don't want it.
9. Follow the install wizard
6. Adding the JDK to Eclipse
1. Go to Window->Preferences in Eclipse
2. Expand Java
3. Select Installed JREs
4. Click Add...
5. Select Standard VM
6. Set JRE home to C:\jdk1.6.0_30\jre
7. Set JRE name to JDK 1.6.0
8. Everything else can be left as default.
7. Creating a project
1. Select File->New->Java Project
1. Project name: something relating to the application you are testing
2. I usually go with the defaults.
3. Maybe change the JRE.
4. Click Next >
5. On the Libraries tab
6. Add JARs... (add External JARs... if you didn't put them in the project workspace)
7. Go to the location you unzip the Selenium files.
8. Select the selenium-java-2.19.0.jar and selenium-java-2.19.0-src.jar files and add them.
9. Add JARs... (add External JARs... if you didn't put them in the project workspace)
10. Go to the location you unzip the Selenium files.
11. Go to the libs folder and add all the jar files in there.
12. Add JARs... (add External JARs... if you didn't put them in the project workspace)
13. Go to the location you downloaded the selenium-server-standalone-2.19.0.jar file
14. Add this file to the libraries.
2. Finish the rest of the project creation using defaults.
3. You can now start adding JUnit Test Cases to the project
1. I select JUnit 4
2. I select a package which follows Java conventions
3. For example, com.mycompany.selenium.application where application is the application we are testing.
4. Add a setUp() and tearDown()
5. Finish
4. Have a look at  http://seleniumhq.org/docs/03_webdriver.html for what to put in the setUp(), tearDown() and test cases.

The most important thing about using Selenium with Java is that you really need to know Java, Source Control (Subversion), an IDE (Eclipse) and a test framework (JUnit) before you even start using Selenium. So search the web for basic Java tutorials, play with Eclipse, check out http://www.junit.org/ and search for tutorials on JUnit 4 then look at the docs on Selenium HQ.

If you need help with Selenium and WebDriver, post a message to http://groups.google.com/group/webdriver. I usually respond to people there on a regular basis.