How to Refresh Browser Pages in Selenium WebDriver?

Selenium is renowned as the top choice for web browser automation tools, largely attributed to its user-friendly nature. Mastering “How to Refresh Pages in Selenium WebDriver” is a fundamental skill for any Selenium user.

This blog will guide you through the steps on " How to Refresh Pages in Selenium Webdriver". Continue reading for an in-depth exploration!

Table of Contents

1) Commands used to Refresh Browser Page in Selenium WebDriver

    a) driver.navigate.refresh command

    b) navigate() method

    c) get() method

    d) sendKeys() using F5 Key

    e) sendKeys() using ASCII Code

2) Conclusion 

Commands used to Refresh Browser Page in Selenium WebDriver   

Refreshing a browser page is a common task in Selenium WebDriver, and there are several commands that can be used to achieve this. Here’s an explanation of a few commands in detail: 

driver.navigate.refresh command 

The driver.navigate().refresh() command in Selenium WebDriver is used to refresh the current web page. 

When you navigate to a web page using Selenium, sometimes the web page may change, and you may need to refresh the page to ensure you are testing the most up-to-date version of the page. 

To use driver.navigate().refresh(), you need to create a new instance of the WebDriver and navigate to the page you want to refresh. Then, you can call the refresh() method on the navigate() object of the driver. 

Here's an example to use this in Java: 
 

This is a typical use case for the navigate().refresh() method in Selenium, which is used to reload the current page. Just make sure that the “some actions here…” part contains valid Selenium commands for the actions you want to perform before refreshing the page.



 

navigate() method 

The navigate() method can be used in a recursive way to refresh a page on Selenium WebDriver. It is available in the WebDriver interface and returns an object of type Navigation that provides a set of methods for controlling browser navigation. 

To refresh the current web page, call the refresh() method on the Navigation object returned by driver.navigate().  

Here's an example to use this in Java: 
 

get() method 

In Selenium WebDriver, you can also use the get() method to refresh the current web page. The get() method is available in the WebDriver interface and is used to navigate the browser to a specific URL. When you call the get() method on the current URL of the browser, it will refresh the current page. 

Here's an example to use this in Java: 
 

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sendKeys() using F5 Key   

On Selenium WebDriver, you can use the sendKeys() method to simulate pressing keyboard keys, including the F5 key, to refresh the current web page.  

To send the F5 key using sendKeys(), you must first locate an element on the page, such as the element. You can then call the sendKeys() method on that element, passing in the Keys.F5 constant as the argument.   

Here's an example to use this in Java: 
 

Note: Make sure you have imported the Keys class at the beginning of your code
 

This will ensure that the Keys.F5 is recognized by the compiler and your code runs without any issues.

 The findElement() method is used to locate the element on the page. Then the sendKeys() method is called on that element, passing in the Keys.F5 constant as the argument. This will simulate pressing the F5 key and refresh the current page. 

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sendKeys() using ASCII Code 

In Selenium WebDriver, you can use the sendKeys() method to simulate typing keyboard keys, including special characters, using ASCII codes.  

To send a key using its ASCII code, you can use the sendKeys() method to send a string containing the character represented by the ASCII code.   

Here's an example to use this in Java: 
 

This code will indeed send the character ‘f’ to the input element because 102 is the ASCII value for ‘f’. The sendKeys() method is used to simulate typing into an element, which may set its value

You can use this approach to send any character using its ASCII code. Simply replace 102 in the example above with the ASCII code for the desired character. 

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Conclusion 

With this blog, we hope you were able to grasp How to Refresh Pages in Selenium WebDriver. The techniques and instructions outlined are instrumental for automating the refresh process in web browsers through Selenium. Beginning with these fundamental refresh commands is essential as they lay the groundwork for exploring the extensive capabilities of automation with Selenium WebDriver.  

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