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how to detect changes to an element

im using selenium to automate a test.
so i have an element that is changed by javascript. how can i detect a change to the text of that item? for example, here is the html of the item before and after it's change:
before:
<span id="errorMsg"></span>
after:
<span id="errorMsg">All fields not filled out</span>
this is a current helper function i have that i call after clicking the submit button. it works very well when loading new pages but it doesn't work in this scenario.
public void waitforText(String search) {
WebDriverWait myWait = new WebDriverWait(Grid.driver(), Grid.getNewTimeOut() / 1000L);
ExpectedCondition conditionToCheck = new ExpectedCondition() {
public Boolean apply(WebDriver input) {
WebElement bodyTag = Grid.driver().findElement(By.tagName("body"));
return Boolean.valueOf(bodyTag.getText().contains(search));
}
};
myWait.until(conditionToCheck);
}
and how im calling the function:
waitforText("All fields not filled out");
i can see the message changed in the page but selenium does not detect this. i know i can use a direct sleep or wait instead but i really do not want to go this route if it can be avoided

Use textToBePresentInElement expected condition:
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, 30);
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.textToBePresentInElement(By.id("errorMsg"), "All fields not filled out"));

Refreshing page until element appears - JAVA - Selenium

I'm new to coding and I have the following issue while automating with Selenium using Java:
I'm testing a SaaS solution and I need to refresh my page until a certain item appears in my inbox. I cannot simply use the findelement statement since the item only appears after some time and onlywhen the page has been refreshed. Furthermore all inbox items have a unique sequential number in the title. This unique number I have saved as a string variable and I want to use this string variable to see if the inbox item has appeared after refreshing the page some times.
Code for finding unique string:
//Get expense report number
String filename = strng;
String ExpenseReportNumber = StringUtils.substringBefore(filename, " submitted"); // returns Expense Report #XXXX
Now I need to create a loop in which the site keeps refreshing until it gets a hit on the string variable. When it finds the string variable I then can select the top element on the inbox and continue my test.
Can someone assist me with this issue or give me advice on how to create the same outcome but then with a better approach? Much appreciated!

Wait<WebDriver> wait12 = new FluentWait<WebDriver>(driver)
.withTimeout(600, TimeUnit.SECONDS)
.pollingEvery(15, TimeUnit.SECONDS)
.ignoring(NoSuchElementException.class);
WebElement ToDoExpense = wait12.until(new Function<WebDriver, WebElement>() {
public WebElement apply(WebDriver driver) {
driver.navigate().refresh();
return driver.findElement(By.partialLinkText(ExpenseReportNumber));
}
});
I have found the solution myself

public WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, 10); //throws exception if element is not found within 10 seconds
driver.navigate().refresh();
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.presenceOfElementLocated(By.partialLinkText(ExpenseReportNumber)));
//continue your test

I worked it out like this:
do
{
driver.refresh();
driver.waitForPageToLoad();
driver.wait(1000);
} while (driver.findElements(By.locator(element)).size() < 1);

selenium dynamically click li item

I am trying to dynamically search an "li" tag item and double-click on this website: www.jstree.com (the right-top hierarchy tree sample). The code does find the WebElement but does not do anything. I am trying as follows. Can someone please point to what I am doing wrong? I am using Firefox 35.0.1 and selenium 2.44.0.
driver.get(baseUrl + "http://www.jstree.com/");
WebElement we = driver.findElement(By.xpath("/html/body/div/div/div[1]/div[1]/div[2]/div[1]/ul/li[1]/ul"));
Actions action = new Actions(driver);
List<WebElement> liItems = we.findElements(By.tagName("li"));
for(WebElement liItem:liItems)
{
System.out.println(liItem.getText());
if(liItem.getText().startsWith("initially open"))
{
System.out.println("Found it...");
liItem.click();
action.moveToElement(liItem).doubleClick().build().perform();
break;
}
}

I ended up doing this:
Modified the selector to make sure ONLY the expected elements are returned. It helps a lot in terms of execution time and reducing the number of unwanted loopings. And, then find the element in run time and use Action() on that to perform double click. I also update the Selenium binding as #alecxe suggested to work with latest Firefox
public void DemoTest() throws InterruptedException {
List<WebElement> liItems = driver.findElements(By.xpath("//*[contains(text(),'initially open')]"));
for(WebElement liItem:liItems)
{
Actions actions = new Actions(driver);
actions.moveToElement(liItem).doubleClick().build().perform();
}
}

How to access a Button with Selenium, when the button seems to be generated from JavaScript

I try to run some tests on a webpage. I'm a beginner and until now everything went pretty smooth.
I'm changing some values in a webform and now want to press the "Save & Exit" button.
But when I look at the available source with the webdriver (driver.getPageSource();) , I don't see a button, only the below JavaScript. I shortened the script to one button - the one button I would like to click.
function getToolbarCfg() {
return [{ btnId: 2, icon:'images/obj16/tsave_.gif', text:'Save & Exit', qtip:'Save Record and Exit', handler:function() { cwc.getCenterWindow().tpzExecute('2',null,'detail'); } }];
Any help is appreciated.

You can have the WebDriver wait explicitly for an element to appear.
public static IWebElement WaitForElementToAppear(IWebDriver driver, int waitTime, By waitingElement)
{
IWebElement wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(waitTime)).Until(ExpectedConditions.ElementExists(waitingElement));
return wait;
}
Read up on Selenium's WebDriver Wait Documentation for a good explanation of explicit and implicit waits.
EDIT:
You could alternatively do this:
public static IWebElement WaitForElementToAppear(IWebDriver driver, int waitTime, By waitingElement)
{
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(waitTime));
var element = wait.Until(d =>
{
var elem = driver.FindElement(waitingElement);
if (elem.Enabled)
return elem;
else return null;
});
return element;
}
This will ping the element every .5 seconds until whatever waitTime is defined or to be OR until the element is present.

Found the solution:
The button is executing a JavaScript when clicked. One can directly call that JavaScript function with the Selenium WebDriver.
((JavascriptExecutor) driver).executeScript("cwc.getCenterWindow().tpzExecute('3',null,'detail');");
Hope this answer helps people having the same troubles.

Selenium webdriver can't click on a link outside the page

I am having an issue with Selenium WebDriver. I try to click on a link that is outside the window page (you'd need to scroll up to see it). My current code is fairly standard:
menuItem = driver.findElement(By.id("MTP"));
menuItem.click();
// I also tried menuItem.sendKeys(Keys.RETURN);
I know I could scroll up, and it would work in this case. But in a case where you have a long list of items, you don't necessarily know how far you have to scroll down.
Is there any way to click on a link that is not on the visible part of the page (but that would be visible if you scroll)?
As a side note, I'm using Firefox, but I am planning to use IE7/8/9 and Chrome as well.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Edit: I'm afraid I can't give the source code, as the company I work for doesn't allow it, but I can give the code of the link I want to click on:
<div class="submenu">
<div id="MTP">Link title</div>
</div>
The exact same code works when the link is visible, only when it is not does it not work.
Edit2: Actually, oddly enough, it doesn't raise any exception and just goes to the next instruction. So basically, what happens is:
menuItem = driver.findElement(By.id("MTP")); // no exception
menuItem.click(); // no exception
//... some code ensuring we got to the next page: timeout reached
driver.findElement(By.id("smLH")).click(); // NoSuchElementException, as we're on the wrong page.

It is actually possible to scroll automatically to element. Although this is not a good solution in this case (there must be a way to get it working without scrolling) I will post it as a workaround. I hope someone will come up with better idea...
public void scrollAndClick(By by)
{
WebElement element = driver.findElement(by);
int elementPosition = element.getLocation().getY();
String js = String.format("window.scroll(0, %s)", elementPosition);
((JavascriptExecutor)driver).executeScript(js);
element.click();
}

I posted this same answer in another question so this is just a copy and paste.
I once had a combo box that wasn't in view that I needed to expand. What I did was use the Actions builder because the moveToElement() function will automatically scroll the object into view. Then it can be clicked on.
WebElement element = panel.findElement(By.className("tabComboBoxButton"));
Actions builder = new Actions(this.driver);
builder.moveToElement(element);
builder.click();
builder.build().perform();
(panel is simply a wrapped element in my POM)

Instead of move the scrollbar to the button position, which sometimes it didn't work for me, I send the enter key to the button
var element = driver.FindElement(By.Id("button"));
element.SendKeys(Keys.Enter);

I ran into a similar problem recently when there was a list of selectable objects in a JS dialog. Sometimes selenium would not select the correct object in the list. So i found this javascript suggestion:
WebElement target = driver.findElement(By.id("myId"));
((JavascriptExecutor) driver).executeScript("arguments[0].scrollIntoView(true);", target);
Thread.sleep(500); //not sure why the sleep was needed, but it was needed or it wouldnt work :(
target.click();
That solved my issue

Hey you can use this for ruby
variable.element.location_once_scrolled_into_view
Store the element to find in variable

It might be occurring because your header element or the footer element might be blocking the view of the element you want to perform action on. Selenium tries to scroll to the element position when it has to perform some action on the element (I am using Selenium WebDriver v3.4.0).
Here is a workaround -
private WebElement scrollToElementByOffset(WebElement element, int offset) {
JavascriptExecutor jse = (JavascriptExecutor) driver;
jse.executeScript("window.scrollTo(" + element.getLocation().getX() + "," + (element.getLocation().getY()
+ offset) + ");");
return element;
}
The above function scrolls the view to the element and then scrolls further by the offset you provide. And you can call this method by doing something like -
WebElement webElement = driver.findElement(By.id("element1"));
scrollToElementByOffset(webElement, -200).click();
Now, this is just a workaround. I gladly welcome better solutions to this issue.

This solution worked like a charm for me:
public void click(By by) throws Exception{
WebElement element = driver.findElement(by);
((JavascriptExecutor) driver).executeScript("arguments[0].scrollIntoView(true);", element);
Thread.sleep(500);
element.click();
}

This works for me (in c#)-
item = driver.findelement(by.....);
item.SendKeys(Keys.LeftControl);
item.Click();

Just an addition:
In my case the button was overlapped by another floating button.
Just resizing the browser window solved the problem!

I used the method below to solve a similar issue for Selenium Java:
public static void scrollToElementByElement(WebElement element) {
Coordinates coordinates = ((Locatable)element).getCoordinates();
coordinates.inViewPort();
coordinates.click(); //if needed
}
Then called on the method on my main test class

I have used below method to solve the problem of element not present in the visible area. The code scrolls down the webpage, till selenium operations can be performed on the element. Change the co ordinate of Y-axis and value of i as per requirement.
public void scrooling(By ele) throws InterruptedException {
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
try {
driver.findElement(ele);
break;
} catch (ElementNotVisibleException e) {
JavascriptExecutor js = (JavascriptExecutor) driver;
js.executeScript("window.scrollBy(0,400)");
System.out.println("inside ElementNotVisibleException block");
Thread.sleep(3000);
} catch (NoSuchElementException e) {
JavascriptExecutor js = (JavascriptExecutor) driver;
js.executeScript("window.scrollBy(0,400)");
System.out.println("inside NoSuchElementException block");
Thread.sleep(3000);
}
}
}