Your First Selenium Script

Prev Next

With the Maven project in place, let's write a complete, real script: open a browser, navigate to the RecipeBox login page, type an email address into the email field, and close the browser cleanly. Every line here is something you'll use in nearly every Selenium test you ever write.

The Complete Script

package com.recipebox.tests;

import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;

public class FirstTest {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();

        try {
            driver.get("https://recipebox.example.com/login");

            driver.findElement(By.id("email")).sendKeys("tester@example.com");

            System.out.println("Page title: " + driver.getTitle());
        } finally {
            driver.quit();
        }
    }
}

Note: This is a plain main method for learning purposes. Once we introduce TestNG in a later lesson, this same logic will move into a proper @Test method — the WebDriver calls themselves don't change at all.

Line by Line

Line	What it does
`import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;`	Brings in the core `WebDriver` interface — every Selenium script needs this.
`import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;`	Brings in the Chrome-specific implementation of `WebDriver`.
`WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();`	Launches a real Chrome browser window and hands you a reference to control it. Under the hood, Selenium Manager finds/downloads a matching `chromedriver` automatically.
`driver.get("https://recipebox.example.com/login")`	Navigates the browser to the given URL and waits for the page to finish loading before returning control to your script.
`driver.findElement(By.id("email"))`	Searches the current page's DOM for the first element whose `id` attribute is `"email"`, and returns it as a `WebElement`.
`.sendKeys("tester@example.com")`	Types the given text into that element, character by character, exactly as a keyboard would.
`driver.getTitle()`	Reads the current page's `<title>` text — useful for quick sanity checks.
`driver.quit();`	Closes every window the driver opened and ends the browser session/process. Without this, browser and driver processes can pile up in the background.

Why the try/finally Matters

If driver.findElement(...) throws an exception (say, the element isn't on the page yet), and you don't wrap the code in try/finally, execution jumps straight out of the method and driver.quit() never runs. The Chrome window — and its background chromedriver process — stays open, silently consuming memory. Wrapping the whole test body in try { ... } finally { driver.quit(); } guarantees cleanup happens whether the test passes, fails, or throws.

Alternative: try-with-resources. Selenium 4's WebDriver extends AutoCloseable, so you can also write try (WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver()) { ... } and Java will call driver.quit() for you automatically when the block exits — no explicit finally needed. Both patterns are common in real codebases; use whichever your team's style favors.

Running It

Run FirstTest.main() from your IDE, or via Maven from the command line:

mvn compile exec:java -Dexec.mainClass="com.recipebox.tests.FirstTest"

You should see a real Chrome window flash open, navigate to the login page, type into the email field, print the page title to the console, then close.

Next up: By.id("email") is just one way to locate an element. Head to ID, Name, ClassName, TagName to learn the other basic locator strategies and when to reach for each one.

Prev Next