{"id":33396,"date":"2021-12-17T09:51:39","date_gmt":"2021-12-17T17:51:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/app14743.cloudwayssites.com\/?p=33396"},"modified":"2022-05-20T11:01:47","modified_gmt":"2022-05-20T18:01:47","slug":"why-visual-locators-not-selectors-in-tests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/app14743.cloudwayssites.com\/blog\/why-visual-locators-not-selectors-in-tests\/","title":{"rendered":"Why You Should Use Visual AI Locators Instead of Fragile Selectors in Your Tests"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In this step-by-step tutorial, learn how to use visual locators to target anything you need to test in your application and how it can help you create tests that are more resilient and robust.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Challenge of Testing Using Traditional Selectors<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As a test engineer, you’re certainly used to writing selectors to target the specific things you are interacting with in your tests. Lots of them. Selectors are critical to test exactly what you’re aiming for, but there are challenges. Not only do you usually have to write quite a lot of them, but in some cases an obvious selector doesn’t even exist and you’ll need to rig up a creative workaround. You can do it, but that kind of workaround is typically fragile and can easily break as the application develops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Needless to say this is frustrating when it happens. And that it happens more than we’d all like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are some cases where traditional selectors work quite well, of course. But in certain complex or atypical situations, there is another option that works better – visual locators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Use Visual AI Locators as an Alternative to Fragile Selectors?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If you’re using an automated visual testing platform that offers visual locators, such as Applitools<\/a>, you can solve this problem immediately. Visual locators can replace these fragile selectors and give us a more robust way of targeting something we need to test.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Essentially, rather than hard-coding one (or many) atypical selector(s) that will be difficult to track and maintain, Applitools visual locators let you select something just by “looking” to see if it is there on the screen. Applitools is able to do this thanks to an industry-leading Visual AI<\/a> that has been trained on over a billion images to an accuracy level of 99.9999%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s walk through how you can use Applitools visual locators to make your testing simpler and avoid hacking together non-standard selectors. You can check out our quick video tutorial below, or read on as we explain it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note: This walkthrough assumes some basic familiarity with Applitools. If you’re new to Applitools, feel free to grab a free account<\/a> and explore the docs<\/a>, or you can always reach out<\/a> with any questions or schedule a quick demo<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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