🧰 Handling Dropdowns and Multiple Windows in Selenium

In many test scenarios, you’ll need to:

Select items from dropdown menus (also called select boxes).

Switch between multiple browser windows or tabs.

Selenium provides built-in support for both tasks.

✅ 1. Handling Dropdowns

Selenium handles HTML <select> dropdowns using the Select class.

📘 Example in Java

java

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import org.openqa.selenium.By;

import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;

import org.openqa.selenium.WebElement;

import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;

import org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.Select;

public class DropdownExample {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();

        driver.get("https://example.com");

        WebElement dropdown = driver.findElement(By.id("dropdownId"));

        Select select = new Select(dropdown);

        // Select by visible text

        select.selectByVisibleText("Option 1");

        // Select by value

        select.selectByValue("value1");

        // Select by index

        select.selectByIndex(2);

        driver.quit();

    }

}

📘 Example in Python

python

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from selenium import webdriver

from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import Select

driver = webdriver.Chrome()

driver.get("https://example.com")

dropdown = driver.find_element("id", "dropdownId")

select = Select(dropdown)

select.select_by_visible_text("Option 1")

select.select_by_value("value1")

select.select_by_index(2)

driver.quit()

🔍 Note: For custom dropdowns (non-HTML <select>), you'll interact with the elements directly using .click() and .find_element() logic.

✅ 2. Handling Multiple Windows or Tabs

Steps:

Store the original window handle.

Trigger the action that opens a new window/tab.

Get all window handles.

Switch to the new one.

Interact with it.

Switch back if needed.

📘 Java Example

java

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String originalWindow = driver.getWindowHandle();

driver.findElement(By.linkText("Open New Tab")).click();

for (String windowHandle : driver.getWindowHandles()) {

    if (!originalWindow.contentEquals(windowHandle)) {

        driver.switchTo().window(windowHandle);

        break;

    }

}

// Do actions in new window

System.out.println(driver.getTitle());

// Switch back

driver.switchTo().window(originalWindow);

📘 Python Example

python

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original = driver.current_window_handle

driver.find_element("link text", "Open New Tab").click()

for handle in driver.window_handles:

    if handle != original:

        driver.switch_to.window(handle)

        break

print(driver.title)  # Actions in new window

driver.switch_to.window(original)  # Switch back

📝 Summary

Task Method (Java / Python)

Select dropdown new Select(element) / Select(element)

Select by text .selectByVisibleText() / .select_by_visible_text()

Get current window driver.getWindowHandle() / driver.current_window_handle

Get all windows driver.getWindowHandles() / driver.window_handles

Switch window driver.switchTo().window(handle) / driver.switch_to.window(handle)

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Read More

Using TestNG with Selenium: Why and How

Top 10 Selenium WebDriver Commands Every Beginner Should Know

Understanding XPath and CSS Selectors in Selenium

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