WebDriver: navigate to new browser window

Question

How do I open a new browser window in Selenium WebDriver? I'm using C# client drivers, but if you know with any language, I should be able to find the correct class/method in C#. On Stack Overflow, I read it's not possible to open a new tab, so I won't ask that.

For example, this will navigate to a new URL in the same window:

public static void DoNavigate(IWebDriver driver, string url)
{
    driver.Navigate().GoToUrl(url);  
    driver.Manage().Timeouts().ImplicitlyWait(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(Constants.WAIT_TIME));
}

Answer 1

It is not necessary to create a new instance of the driver object. You can use JavaScript to open a new window which is a lot faster.

To open the window:

IJavaScriptExecutor jscript = driver as IJavaScriptExecutor;
jscript.ExecuteScript("window.open()");

Then to switch windows, use the window handles:

List<string> handles = driver.WindowHandles.ToList<string>();
driver.SwitchTo().Window(handles.Last());

driver.Navigate().GoToUrl(url);

Answer 2

You have to create a new instance of the driver object. This will open a new window and you can switch between windows by using the different driver objects. For example:

IWebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver();

DoNavigate(driver, "http://google.com");

Answer 3

Here is an example in Clojure:

(import [org.openqa.selenium.firefox FirefoxDriver])

(let [driver1 (FirefoxDriver.) 
      driver2 (FirefoxDriver.)]
  (.get driver1 "http://www.google.com")
  (.get driver2 "http://sqa.stackexchange.com/q/2701/246")))

Answer 4

Here's how I'm doing it in VB with FirefoxDriver. I created a wrapper for the webdrivers, but without a wrapper it looks something like this. IWebDriver has two handle controls; CurrentWindowHandle and a collection of WindowHandles. The handles in WindowHandles are in the order in which they were created, so getting the last handle in the list gets the window you just opened. In my experience CurrentWindowHandle is NOT the new window, but the window in which you executed the javascript command.

To open a new window:

Dim script As String = "window.open()"
Dim jScript As IJavaScriptExecutor = CType(driver, IJavaScriptExecutor).ExecuteScript(script)

To switch to the most recently opened window:

Dim lastWindowOpened As Integer = driver.WindowHandles.count - 1
driver.SwitchTo().Window(driver.WindowHandles(lastWindowOpened))

Close or otherwise do something to each handle:

For Each window In driver.WindowHandles
   driver.SwitchTo().Window(window)
   driver.Close()
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