Mouse Click & Keyboard Event using ActionChains

ActionChains are a way to automate low level interactions such as mouse movements, mouse button actions, key press, and context menu interactions.

Selenium has the built-in ability to handle various types of keyboard and mouse events. This is useful for doing more complex actions like hover over and drag and drop.

You need to import action_chains for mouse and keyboard event methods, below is the import statement.

from selenium.webdriver.common.action_chains import ActionChains.

When you call methods for actions on the ActionChains object, the actions are stored in a queue in the ActionChains object.

When you call perform(), the events are fired in the order they are queued up.

To create an object ‘action‘ of Selenium Actionchains:

actions = ActionChains(driver) 

To focus on element using WebDriver:

actions.move_to_element(webelement) 

perform() method is used to execute the action. 

actions.move_to_element(webelement).perform()

To click on the element:

Ex: actions.move_to_element(webelement).click().perform() 

Click() method is used here to click the element.

Keyboard Events Using Selenium Actionchains

key_down(value, element=None) :Sends a key press only, without releasing it. Should only be used with modifier keys (Control, Alt and Shift).

value - The modifier key to send. Values are defined in Keys class.

element -The element to send keys. If None, sends a key to current focused element.

Ex: ActionChains(driver).key_down(Keys.CONTROL).send_keys('c').perform()

key_up(value, element=None) : Releases a modifier key.

value - The modifier key to send. Values are defined in Keys class.

element -The element to send keys. If None, sends a key to current focused element.

Ex: ActionChains(driver).key_up(Keys.CONTROL).perform()

send_keys(charsequence) : sends a series of keystrokes to current focused element.

charsequence - any string value representing the sequence of keystrokes to be sent

Ex: ActionChains(driver).send_keys('c').perform()

send_keys_to_element(Element, charsequence) :sends a series of keystrokes to an element.

element - element that will receive the keystrokes, usually a text field

charsequence - any string value representing the sequence of keystrokes to be sent

Ex: ActionChains(driver).send_keys(webelement,'c').perform()

Mouse Events Using Selenium Actionchains

Click(element=None): it is used  to click the element. 

element: The element to click. If None, clicks on current mouse position. 

Ex: ActionChains(driver).move_to_element(webelement).click().perform()

double_click(element=None): Performs a double-click at the current mouse location.

element: The element to double_click. If None, double clicks on current mouse position. 

Ex: ActionChains(driver).move_to_element(webelement).double_click().perform()

click_and_hold(element=None):Holds down the left mouse button on an element.(without releasing)

element: The element to mouse down. If None, clicks on current mouse position. 

Ex: ActionChains(driver).move_to_element(webelement).click_and_hold(element).perform()

context_click(element=None):Performs a context-click (right click) on an element. 

element: The element to context click. If None, clicks on current mouse position. 

Ex: ActionChains(driver).move_to_element(webelement).context_click().perform()

drag_and_drop(source, target):Holds down the left mouse button on the source element,then moves to the target element and releases the mouse button.

source: The element to mouse down.

target: The element to mouse up. 

Ex: ActionChains(driver).move_to_element(webelement).drag_and_drop(sEle,tEle).perform()

drag_and_drop_by_offset(source, xoffset, yoffset):Holds down the left mouse button on the source element, then moves to the target offset and releases the mouse button.

source - The element to mouse down

xOffset – to shift horizontally,

yOffset – to shift vertically

 Ex:

ActionChains(driver).move_to_element(webelement).drag_and_drop(sEle,200,250).perform()

move_by_offset(xoffset, yoffset):Moving the mouse to an offset from current mouse position.

xoffset: X offset to move to, as a positive or negative integer.

yoffset: Y offset to move to, as a positive or negative integer. 

Ex: ActionChains(driver).move_by_offset(250,300).click().perform()

move_to_element(to_element):Moving the mouse to the middle of an element. 

to_element: The WebElement to move to. 

Ex: ActionChains(driver).move_to_element(webelement).Click().perform()

move_to_element_with_offset(to_element, xoffset, yoffset):Move the mouse by an offset of the specified element.Offsets are relative to the top-left corner of the element.

to_element: The WebElement to move to.

xoffset: X offset to move to.

yoffset: Y offset to move to. 

Ex: ActionChains(driver).move_to_element(webelement,250,300).Click().perform()

release(on_element=None) :Releasing a held mouse button on an element. 

on_element: The element to mouse up. If None, releases on current mouse position.

Ex: ActionChains(driver).move_to_element(webelement).release().perform()

Few more actionchains methods

pause(seconds):

Pause all inputs for the specified duration in seconds

perform()

Performs all stored actions.

reset_actions()

Clears actions that are already stored locally and on the remote end.

Below are the scenarios how to use actionchains methods in selenium.

Scenario 1:

Open Chrome browser.

Navigate to the https://www.goindigo.in application.

moving the mouse over an element on web page displays Book menu

Click on Book a flight.

Print the title of the page.

Script:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import Select
from selenium.webdriver.common.action_chains import ActionChains
import time

chromePath="C:\\BrowserDrivers\\chromedriver.exe"
driver=webdriver.Chrome(executable_path=chromePath)
driver.get("https://www.goindigo.in") 

# Book menu id
bookid=driver.find_element_by_xpath("//a[@title='Book']") 

# create action object for action_chains
actions=ActionChains(driver)

# using move to element for move the mouse course to book element

actions.move_to_element(bookid)

# perform the action
actions.perform()
driver.find_element_by_xpath("//div[@class='nav-inner-items']//a[contains(@href,'flight-booking_header')]").click()
pageTitle=driver.title
print("Page title is : ",pageTitle)

Scenario 2:

Open Chrome browser.

Navigate to the https://www.facebook.com application.

I am trying to set value  in the first Name and Surname fields, but I am passing lower case letter in send_keys with the keypress of Shift, but it I will enter as a capital letters.

Script:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import Select
from selenium.webdriver.common.action_chains import ActionChains
import time

chromePath="C:\\BrowserDrivers\\chromedriver.exe"
driver=webdriver.Chrome(executable_path=chromePath)

driver.get("https://www.facebook.com/") 

firstname=driver.find_element_by_xpath("//input[@name='firstname']")
lastname=driver.find_element_by_xpath("//input[@name='lastname']")
# create an object for action_chains
actions=ActionChains(driver) 

# for FirstName field
actions.key_down(Keys.SHIFT,firstname)
actions.send_keys("hello")
actions.key_up(Keys.SHIFT,firstname) 

#for surname Field
actions.key_down(Keys.SHIFT,lastname)
actions.send_keys("hello")
actions.key_up(Keys.SHIFT,lastname)

Scenario 3: To Scroll Web page using Actions Class in Selenium

Open Chrome browser.

Navigate to the https://www.python.org application.

Do Scroll down

Do Scroll Up.

Note : We are using PageDown and PageUp keyword option as a parameters  to send_keys.

Script:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import Select
from selenium.webdriver.common.action_chains import ActionChains
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
import time

chromePath="C:\\BrowserDrivers\\chromedriver.exe"
driver=webdriver.Chrome(executable_path=chromePath)
driver.get("https://www.python.org/")
# create an object
actions=ActionChains(driver)

actions.send_keys(Keys.PAGE_DOWN)
actions.perform()
time.sleep(3)

# Reset the actions
actions.reset_actions()

actions.send_keys(Keys.PAGE_UP)
actions.perform()

How To Perform Double Click Action In Selenium

Scenario 4:

Open Chrome browser.

Navigate to the https://api.jquery.com/dblclick/ application.

Double click on the box.it will be available in the bottom.

Script:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import Select
from selenium.webdriver.common.action_chains import ActionChains
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
from selenium.webdriver.common.alert import Alert
import time
chromePath="C:\\BrowserDrivers\\chromedriver.exe"
driver=webdriver.Chrome(executable_path=chromePath)
driver.get("https://api.jquery.com/dblclick/")

driver.switch_to.frame(0)
xpaths1=driver.find_element_by_xpath("/html/body/div")
actions=ActionChains(driver)

# double click on the element
actions.double_click(xpaths1)
actions.perform()
time.sleep(2)

xpaths2=driver.find_element_by_xpath("//div[@class='dbl']")
actions.reset_actions()
actions.double_click(xpaths2)
actions.perform()

Drag And Drop Using ActionChains in selenium:

Scenario 5:

Open Chrome browser.

Navigate to the  http://jqueryui.com/droppable/ application.

Drag and Drop. 

Note: we are using drag_and_drop method for drag and drop for below script.

Script

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import Select
from selenium.webdriver.common.action_chains import ActionChains
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
from selenium.webdriver.common.alert import Alert
import time
chromePath="C:\\BrowserDrivers\\chromedriver.exe"
driver=webdriver.Chrome(executable_path=chromePath)

driver.get("https://jqueryui.com/droppable/") 

frmobj=driver.find_element(By.XPATH,"//*[@class='demo-frame']")
actions=ActionChains(driver)
driver.switch_to.frame(frmobj)
sEle=driver.find_element(By.CSS_SELECTOR,"div#draggable")
tEle=driver.find_element(By.CSS_SELECTOR,"div#droppable")
actions.drag_and_drop(sEle,tEle)
actions.perform()

Scenario 6:

Open Chrome browser.

Navigate to the  http://jqueryui.com/droppable/ application.

Drag and Drop.(with out using drag_and_drop method) 

Note: we are using Click_and_hold and release methods.

Script

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import Select
from selenium.webdriver.common.action_chains import ActionChains
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
from selenium.webdriver.common.alert import Alert
import time
chromePath="C:\\BrowserDrivers\\chromedriver.exe"
driver=webdriver.Chrome(executable_path=chromePath)

driver.get("https://jqueryui.com/droppable/") 

frmobj=driver.find_element(By.XPATH,"//*[@class='demo-frame']")
actions=ActionChains(driver)
driver.switch_to.frame(frmobj)
sEle=driver.find_element(By.CSS_SELECTOR,"div#draggable")
tEle=driver.find_element(By.CSS_SELECTOR,"div#droppable")
actions.click_and_hold(sEle)
actions.move_to_element(tEle)
actions.release()
actions.perform()