I'm writing some tests for my site using WebdriverIO alongside Mocha/Chai, but when I do this:

it('select application', function(done) {
    client
        .click('.disciplinetext > table:nth-child(7) > tbody:nth-child(1) > tr:nth-child(1) > td:nth-child(3) > button:nth-child(1)')
        // more stuff

The element doesn't exist yet (wasn't rendered). Shouldn't .click() implicitly wait for the page to finish loading before it actually attempts to click the element?

It works fine if I slap this line before it:

.waitFor('.disciplinetext > table:nth-child(7) > tbody:nth-child(1) > tr:nth-child(1) > td:nth-child(3) > button:nth-child(1)',1000)

But I don't want to have to throw a waitFor before every .setValue(), .click(), .getText(), or any other API mand. Am I missing something?

Is there either a mand to wait for the whole page to load, or a setting to make implicitly wait before accessing an element?

I'm writing some tests for my site using WebdriverIO alongside Mocha/Chai, but when I do this:

it('select application', function(done) {
    client
        .click('.disciplinetext > table:nth-child(7) > tbody:nth-child(1) > tr:nth-child(1) > td:nth-child(3) > button:nth-child(1)')
        // more stuff

The element doesn't exist yet (wasn't rendered). Shouldn't .click() implicitly wait for the page to finish loading before it actually attempts to click the element?

It works fine if I slap this line before it:

.waitFor('.disciplinetext > table:nth-child(7) > tbody:nth-child(1) > tr:nth-child(1) > td:nth-child(3) > button:nth-child(1)',1000)

But I don't want to have to throw a waitFor before every .setValue(), .click(), .getText(), or any other API mand. Am I missing something?

Is there either a mand to wait for the whole page to load, or a setting to make implicitly wait before accessing an element?

• javascript
• selenium-webdriver
• webdriver-io

• .click "will" implicitly wait for the page to load before ever operating on an element. Is this element being appended to the DOM via ajax? – ddavison Commented Sep 4, 2013 at 17:00
• @sircapsalot: No, it's in the Ctrl+U page source on page load. – mpen Commented Sep 4, 2013 at 17:09
• May be the second ment in this discussion (groups.google./forum/#!topic/webdriver/8n55XfpDSGo) would be helpful. FYI, there is an implicitWait implementation in the Java, Python, Ruby bindings for the selenium webdriver. – Amey Commented Sep 4, 2013 at 17:10
• 3 @Amey doesn't really help him as he's using webdriverjs :) – ddavison Commented Sep 4, 2013 at 17:19
• 1 @mpen for starters, implicit waits aren't a best practice, moreover, they are frowned upon in the web-automation scene. There is no excuse for not using explicit waits. I know your question entailed an implicit wait approach, but trust me, after hundreds of hours of doing this stuff, if you want to sleep well at night while your regression is running, you will want to do some explicit waiting for each of your mands. I'll add an answer tomorrow (need some ZZzzZZ's now). Also, can we do something about that accepted answer? :) There's like 0 relevance to it. – iamdanchiv Commented Dec 14, 2017 at 17:56

3 Answers 3

The driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(ms) function does exist in the WebdriverJS Reference API Docs. This API is for the official Javascript API that Selenium supports and @sircapsalot's excerpt es from. However, it is much cleaner than looking at the Google Code and much easier to navigate.

You can set the duration of the implicit wait via:

Driver.Manage().Timeouts().ImplicitlyWait(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(2));

The default setting is 0, which is why click() fires instantly.

Obviously this is a c# example, but hopefully you can translate it.

I think this is a a webdriverjs example:

driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(30, TimeUnit.SECONDS);

It doesn't look like webdriverjs even has an implicit timeout, ergo, no way to change it.

1 solution I can think of, is to override the click() method to something like this... (note that this is psuedo.)

click = function(what) {
  waitFor(what);
  super(what);
}

it's an explicit wait, but we can consider it implicit ;)

EDIT: I took a further look into the "inner sanctum" of webdriverjs, and i found this excerpt from here

/**
 * ...
 * @param {number} ms The amount of time to wait, in milliseconds.
 * @return {!webdriver.promise.Promise} A promise that will be resolved when the
 *     implicit wait timeout has been set.
 */
webdriver.WebDriver.Timeouts.prototype.implicitlyWait = function(ms) {
  return this.driver_.schedule(
      new webdriver.Command(webdriver.CommandName.IMPLICITLY_WAIT).
          setParameter('ms', ms < 0 ? 0 : ms),
      'WebDriver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(' + ms + ')');
};

Try doing some javascript magic to override this method.