PageObjects

The concept of Page Objects has been introduced as an abstraction layer between web application tests and the DOM that results from the web application’s implementation: tests (especially BDD tests) should test for functionality, not exact DOM structure.

The basic idea is that a web page offers Services and that the services are the only thing which need intimate knowledge of the DOM structure (as explained on the Selenium wiki). These services will be encapsulated in an object which knows how to map manipulation of those services to manipulation of the DOM.

Example

An example of a PageObject could be the following LoginPage (translated from the Java example on the SeleniumHQ wiki):

package Test::MyWebApp::LoginPage;

use Moo;

has driver => (is => 'ro');

sub loginAs {
   my ($self, $user, $passwd) = @_;
   
   # Set the user and password and click 'Login'
   # Assert that the next - expected - page pops up
   # and return the next page object (HomePage?)
}

The tests then can access the login page as easy as:

# Return a homepage
sub test_login {
   my ($driver) = @_;
   my $login = Test::MyWebApp::LoginPage->new(driver => $driver);
   return $login->('testuser', 'testpassword');
}