Web Driver Methods in Selenium Python

Selenium is a powerful Python library used for automating web browsers. Its WebDriver API allows you to control browsers programmatically interacting with HTML elements, navigating pages, taking screenshots, executing JavaScript, handling cookies and much more.

This guide explains how to create WebDriver objects, configure them and use various WebDriver methods to automate browser tasks effectively.

Creating a WebDriver Object

To begin using Selenium, the first step is to create a WebDriver object. This object acts as an interface to the browser you want to automate. Each supported browser (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, etc.) has its own WebDriver class.

Example: Creating a Firefox WebDriver

from selenium import webdriver

# Create a WebDriver object for Firefox
driver = webdriver.Firefox()

Arguments for WebDriver

When initializing a WebDriver, you can pass optional arguments to customize the browser’s behavior. These options let you control advanced settings such as headless mode, custom profiles, proxy configurations and more.

How to use Webdriver in Selenium ?

Once you have a WebDriver object, you can control the browser to open pages, interact with elements, and perform automated actions using different WebDriver methods.

Example: Open a webpage and execute JavaScript

from selenium import webdriver

# Create WebDriver
driver = webdriver.Firefox()

# Open a webpage
driver.get("https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/")

# Execute JavaScript to create an alert
script = "alert('Hello from Selenium!')"
driver.execute_script(script)

Output:

WebDriver Methods in Selenium Python

Selenium WebDriver provides a wide range of methods to manipulate the browser. Here’s a categorized overview:

Navigation Methods

These methods allow you to control browser navigation, such as going to a URL, moving back or forward in history, and refreshing the page.

Window Management Methods

You can control the browser window—resize it, move it, or retrieve its size and position.

Element Interaction Methods

These methods let you find elements on a page and interact with them using locators like ID, XPath, CSS_SELECTOR, etc.

Example: Click a button and type text

from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By

# Locate an element by ID
search_box = driver.find_element(By.ID, "search-input")

# Enter text
search_box.send_keys("Selenium Python")

# Submit search
search_box.submit()

Cookie Management Methods

WebDriver allows you to manage cookies to simulate logged-in sessions or test site behavior.

JavaScript Execution Methods

You can run JavaScript on the current page using these methods—synchronously or asynchronously.

Screenshot Methods

These methods help capture browser screenshots as image files, binary data or base64-encoded strings.

Session & Page Info Methods

You can retrieve details about the current session and page using these properties.

Timeout Methods

These methods help manage how long WebDriver waits for certain operations—such as finding elements or waiting for scripts.

Advanced Methods

These are more advanced tools for working with logs or manually creating web elements.

Example Project Using WebDriver Methods

Below is a simple example that uses various WebDriver methods to open a page, take a screenshot, run JavaScript, and close the browser.

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager
import time

# WebDriver object
driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=Service(ChromeDriverManager().install()))

# Open a webpage
driver.get("https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/")

# Execute JavaScript alert
driver.execute_script("alert('Hello Selenium!')")

# Switch to alert and accept it
alert = driver.switch_to.alert
print("Alert text:", alert.text)
time.sleep(2) 
alert.accept() 

print("Page Title:", driver.title)
driver.quit()

Output:

DevTools listening on ws://127.0.0.1:57695/devtools/browser/f2b5b6b4-b070-4193-ac98-fdade9dc6a19

Alert text: Hello Selenium!

Page Title: GeeksforGeeks | Your All-in-One Learning Portal

Explanation:

• Initialize WebDriver using ChromeDriverManager to launch Chrome.
• Open webpage and show a JavaScript alert via execute_script().
• Handle the alert by switching to it, printing its text and accepting it.
• Print page title and close the browser using driver.quit().