Create a Chrome browser instance

In the previous tutorial, we thoroughly covered how to install and configure Selenium. Now, we officially begin exploring basic web automation operations. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to perform fundamental web interactions using Selenium, such as opening a webpage, locating elements, entering text, and clicking buttons. We’ll walk through practical examples with clear code snippets to help you grasp each concept effectively.

Overview of Basic Operations

When performing web automation with Selenium, you typically need to master the following core operations:

1. Launching a browser and navigating to a webpage
2. Locating web elements
3. Interacting with web elements
4. Closing the browser

We’ll now cover each of these operations in detail.

1. Launching a Browser and Opening a Webpage

First, import the Selenium library and select a browser driver—in this example, we use Google Chrome:

from selenium import webdriver

# Create a Chrome browser instance
driver = webdriver.Chrome()

# Navigate to a webpage
driver.get('https://www.example.com')

Here, we import the webdriver module and instantiate a Chrome browser. The get() method loads the specified URL.

2. Locating Web Elements

Web elements can be located in multiple ways—by ID, name, class name, tag name, and more. Below are some commonly used locator strategies:

# Locate element by ID
element_by_id = driver.find_element(By.ID, 'example_id')

# Locate element by name
element_by_name = driver.find_element(By.NAME, 'example_name')

# Locate element by class name
element_by_class = driver.find_element(By.CLASS_NAME, 'example_class')

# Locate element by tag name
element_by_tag = driver.find_element(By.TAG_NAME, 'h1')

⚠️ Note: The legacy methods like find_element_by_id() have been deprecated since Selenium 4.0. Use find_element(By.<METHOD>, 'value') instead (as shown above). Ensure the target element is present and loaded before attempting to locate it.

3. Interacting with Web Elements

Once an element is located, you can interact with it. Common interactions include typing text, clicking buttons, and retrieving element text.

Entering Text

To type into an input field, use the send_keys() method:

# Locate an input field and enter text
input_box = driver.find_element(By.NAME, 'username')
input_box.send_keys('my_username')

Clicking a Button

To simulate a click on a button or link, call the click() method:

# Locate and click the login button
login_button = driver.find_element(By.NAME, 'login')
login_button.click()

Retrieving Element Text

To fetch visible text from an element—or retrieve the page title—use the .text property or built-in attributes:

# Get the page title
page_title = driver.title
print(page_title)

# Get visible text of an element
heading = driver.find_element(By.TAG_NAME, 'h1').text
print(heading)

4. Closing the Browser

After completing your automation tasks, always close the browser to release system resources:

# Quit the browser session
driver.quit()

✅ driver.quit() closes all associated windows and ends the WebDriver session. Prefer it over driver.close(), which only closes the current window.

Practical Example

Below is a complete, working example: automating login on a sample login page—entering credentials and submitting the form.

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from time import sleep

# Create a Chrome browser instance
driver = webdriver.Chrome()

try:
    # Open the login page
    driver.get('https://www.example.com/login')

    # Enter username and password
    driver.find_element(By.NAME, 'username').send_keys('my_username')
    driver.find_element(By.NAME, 'password').send_keys('my_password')

    # Click the login button
    driver.find_element(By.NAME, 'login').click()

    # Pause briefly to observe the result (optional)
    sleep(5)

finally:
    # Always quit the driver to clean up resources
    driver.quit()

In this example, we navigate to a hypothetical login page, populate the username and password fields, submit the form, pause for observation, and safely terminate the session. The try...finally block ensures the browser closes even if an error occurs.

Summary

In this tutorial, we explored essential Selenium web automation techniques: launching a browser, navigating to pages, locating elements using modern By locators, interacting with elements (typing, clicking, reading text), and properly closing the browser. These foundational skills form the bedrock for tackling more advanced automation scenarios.

Next, we’ll dive into advanced operations, including handling dynamic content (e.g., AJAX-loaded elements, waiting for conditions, managing pop-ups and frames). Stay tuned for our upcoming tutorials!