Screen-shot on fail tool button will be available
Capturing a screen shot on error or failure is a useful ability that has been available to Selenium users via programming languages. Selenium IDE users did not have an easy option so far. My Screenshot on Fail plugin for Selenium IDE makes this available as a single click feature. When the screen shot on fail plugin is enabled, this plugin will automatically grab a screen shot of the complete web page at the point of test failure. The screen shots are captured for the entire web page and give you an opportunity to review the exact state of the web page when the failures occurred. I have uploaded it to the Mozilla Addons website, but the approval process to make it public usually takes a while. The good news is that you can grab it right now from the addons page.
Once you install the plugin, a Screenshot on Fail tool button will be available on the Selenium IDE toolbar. See the screen shot.
Mini user guide for the plugin
- Click on the Screenshot on Fail tool button to turn on capturing screen shots on failure.
- Run your test case or test suite to capture page coverage.
- Click on the small arrow next to the Screenshot on Fail icon and then click View failure report menu item to open the failure report.
- This should open all the failure reports or the latest one if you have just executed a test case or test suite.
- Click on the Screenshot on Fail tool button again to turn off page coverage.
View failure reports
Future plans
- A few improvements are in the works, including highlighting the failing element in case it exists.
To use this plugin, you will need to install Selenium IDE extension of at least version 1.0.4 first.
Other Thoughts
This core of this plugin was developed along with my Power Debugger plugin a long time ago. It was not released so far as the management of the failure reports was pending. The report management was developed last year during my holidays for the Page Coverage plugin. I just merged it together and made a few improvements to finish this plugin. I hope you find it useful.
As usual feel free to leave comments, improvements, advise, criticism, problems…
You can follow me on Twitter to know when I release new Selenium IDE Plugins or new versions are available. 
Is it possible to change the location of where the screen shots are saved?
Cheers
Dan
Hi Dan,
Not at the moment, but it will be an option in a future release. Is it a big problem?
Cheers,
Samit
If u can add that feature it will be really useful.
when I need to run several test cases (different project) it is more easy to identify.
Samit,
I was writing about the same problem, Not really a “problem” per say, But I would like to change the save to location to somewhere on our network so multiple people can see the failures…great job though…I always enjoy your plugins.
Thanks,
Randy
Hi Randy,
This should be available in an update in the later half of this month.
Cheers,
Samit
Hi Samit,
Is it possible to adopt this plug-in to be used at selenium RC server (probably as user-extension)? We are running our tests as selenese commands at RC server and if something goes wrong test is failed after timeout and we have no indication on whats happens.
Thanks,
Jacob
Hi Jacob,
It is definitely possible to modify the code to work with Selenium RC as a user extension. However, the current code had to be tightly coupled with the Selenium IDE to make it work as a Selenium IDE Plugin and would require changes. Feel free to make changes to the code and use it as you like. Get in touch if you get stuck somewhere or need commercial support from someone.
Cheers,
Samit
Hi Samit,
As usual “Good work”
But it will be more useful if we can integrate to selenium RC.
-Ganesh
Hi Ganesh,
If you use Selenium RC from a real programming language, you should be able to do this. If you just use Selenium RC to run Selenese test cases, you will need a Selenium RC compatible version of this plugin. While possible, it has several challenges and would take a lot of time
Cheers,
Samit
Great work brother,
I also have same problem if u could make this to work with selenium rc it will be a greatest job!!!
Hi Samit,
This is really good, i was wondering if i could change the name of the screenshot that is saved to that of the Test case. Currently the screenshot name is error 1, 2 etc is there any way by which this can be changed to match the test case name.
This would be useful to identify which screenshot belongs to which test case.
Regards,
Vignesh
Hi Vignesh,
Getting hold of the test case name is currently a pain. I am trying to address that problem first in Selenium IDE itself. Once that is done most of my plugins will be able to access it.
Cheers,
Samit
Hi, Did you manage to sort being able to change the file location for screenshots, will be a big big problem for me?
Thanks
Hi Matt,
It should be in the next plugin release.
Cheers,
Samit
Great addition to the Selenium IDE! I look forward to being able to specify the location for the screenshot as well. Since I’m using Selenium IDE (and your File Logging) to run a test suite on our websites, it would also be useful if the name of the file could be customized also; if, for example it could include the name of the test case where it occurred.
Keep up the good work! And thanks!
Hi Jim,
Thank you. Both the features would make it into this extension. At the moment I am focusing on getting the WebDriver playback out first. This will then be the next item on my list.
Cheers,
Samit
Hi Samit,
It wont work in Selenium IDE v2.6.0:(
Please add that screenshot taking button in this version too!
Hi Nikita,
It should work. I will look into it.
Cheers,
Samit