Locator Properties with Selenium2 @FindBy Annotation

[Aidan]

Hi,

I've recently started using Selenium2 with the Page Object Pattern in
conjunction with Page Factory. I have the WebElements declared with
@FindBy Annotations that are initialized by the PageFactory when the
class is initialized. However I would like to use the @FindBy
Annotation with a locators.properties file. Unfortunately I don't seem
to be able to do this as the Annotation is restricted to only allowing
Constant Expressions. This seems to be a limitation in Java
Annotations in general but I'm just wondering if anybody has found a
workaround for this. I would prefer to load the locators from an
external source but then I would lose the benefits of using
PageFactory.

public class LoginPage {

protected WebDriver driver;

@FindBy(id = "username")
private WebElement usernameField;

@FindBy(id = "password")
private WebElement passwordField;

@FindBy(id = "button_login")
private WebElement loginButton;

public LoginPage(WebDriver driver) {
this.driver = driver;
PageFactory.initElements(driver, this);
}
}

I would like to implement something similar to this but I can't
because the Annotation will not allow this:

public class LoginPage {

protected WebDriver driver;

Properties locators = new Properties();

@FindBy(id = locators.getProperty("login.usernameField"))
private WebElement usernameField;

@FindBy(id = locators.getProperty("login.passwordField"))
private WebElement passwordField;

@FindBy(id = locators.getProperty("login.loginButton"))
private WebElement loginButton;

public LoginPage(WebDriver driver) {
this.driver = driver;
// Load the locators.properties File here
PageFactory.initElements(driver, this);
}
}

[valm...@gmail.com]

Hi Aidan,

I know you posted this a long time ago but I was wondering if you ever found a workaround for it as

I'm facing the same problem.

I tried the method below but it did't work.

 

 public final static String PERSONAL_ID = OR.getProperty("LOGIN_PERSONAL_ID");

@FindBy(id = PERSONAL_ID) private WebElement _personalIDField;

Thanks

ValW

[robbiewinston]

You don't have to use the Page Factory to implement the page object design pattern.

For example you can hand craft page objects as POJOs.\

eg.

public class LoginPage { 

        protected WebDriver driver; 

        Properties locators = new Properties(); 

private By usernameIdentifier = By.cssSelector("#" +

locators.getProperty("login.usernameField"));

 

        public LoginPage(WebDriver driver) { 
                this.driver = driver; 
               
        } 

public void setUsername(String username) {

this.driver.findElement(usernameIdentifier).sendKeys(username);

} 

public String getUsername() {

return this.driver.findElement(usernameIdentifier).getText();

}

 

 

}