Iframe handing in Selenium WebDriver

Iframes, in html, are used to divide a web page into multiple sections or to display a web page within another web page.

To interact with any WebElement of a frame. First, we have to switch to that frame and then only WebElements can be identified.

In this tutorial, i will be using word “frame” and “iframe” interchangeably.

Note: Frames are generally not visible using “Firepath”, refer html tab of “Firebug” to identify a frame.

Refer below image to see how frames are defined in a page. Inside a frame, another page is embedded.

<iframe id="iframeResult" frameborder="0">

iframe tag is used to define a frame.

Now to switch to a frame we have three options:

• Switch to a frame with an Index – All the frames in a Web Page are assigned an index starting from 1.

Driver.switchTo().frame(1);

• Switch to a frame with an ID –  Most of the time, frames has an ID attribute assigned to it. If a frame has an Id, we can use below method

Driver.switchTo().frame("iframeResult");

• Switch to a frame as a Web Element – When a frame does not have an Id, and switch with an Index is never a good way. In that case, we are left with one option and that identifying a frame as a web element and then switch to it. Refer below code for better understanding:

WebElement frame = Driver.findElement(By.className("demo-frame"));
      Driver.switchTo().frame(frame);

We will be covering practical scenarios on frames in upcoming tutorials.

I hope you enjoyed the article, feel free to write us at saurabh@qatechhub.com or support@qatechhub.com. Happy Learning 🙂