Selenium JavascriptExecutor on IE9 results in 'element was not scrolled into the viewport' error

Question

I'm trying to use a JavascriptExecutor to open a new tab in IE9 from selenium webdriver:

public void openTab() {
    String url = webDriver.getCurrentUrl();
    String script = "var     a=document.createElement('a');a.target='_blank';a.href='" + url + "';a.innerHTML='open';document.body.appendChild(a);return a";
    Object element = getJSExecutor().executeScript(script);
    if (element instanceof WebElement) {
        WebElement anchor = (WebElement) element;
        anchor.click();
    } else {
        throw new RuntimeException("Unable to open tab: " + url);
    }
}

This works fine in Chrome but on running in IE9, I get the following error:

ElementNotVisibleException: The point at which the driver is attempting to click on the element was not scrolled into the viewport.

I'm using the 2.31 versions of both selenium and IEDriverServer.

Answer 1

I had been having this difficulty in IE9 in a parallels VM. These are the two lines that made the whole thing work...

Actions builder = new Actions(webDriver);
builder.moveToElement(element).click(element).perform();

Scrolls the element into view then clicks it.

Answer 2

Managed to resolve the viewport issue & get the IEDriverServer to interact properly with both windows after a little coaxing so thought I'd post my solution in case anyone else has this problem.

To resolve the viewport problem, I used Actions to do a moveToElement then click:

public void actionsClick(WebElement element){
    Actions builder = new Actions(webDriver);
    builder.moveToElement(element).click(element).perform();
}

The IEDriverServer seems to take a little longer to pick up all the window handles, so I added a 5 second wait into the openTab method after doing the click:

public void openTab() {
    String url = webDriver.getCurrentUrl();
    String script = "var a=document.createElement('a');a.target='_blank';a.href='" + url + "';a.innerHTML='open me in a new tab';document.body.appendChild(a);return a";
    Object element = getJSExecutor().executeScript(script);
    if (element instanceof WebElement) {
        WebElement anchor = (WebElement) element;
        actionsClick(anchor);
        waitFor(5000);
        switchBrowserTab();
        returnToPreviousBrowserTab();
    } else {
        throw new RuntimeException("Unable to open tab: " + url);
    }
}

Then, as shown in the method above, to ensure the IEDriverServer is aware of both windows/tabs and can move between them, I added switchBrowserTab() and returnToPreviousBrowserTab() methods after clicking and waiting. Using the JavascriptExecutor to open a new tab will leave focus in the original tab and this method is set up to end with focus back in there again. In case anyone hasn't used the window handles before, here is the method I'm using for switching to the newly opened tab:

    Set<String> handles = webDriver.getWindowHandles();
    List<String> handlesList = new ArrayList<String>();
    for (String handle : handles) {
        handlesList.add(handle);
    }
    webDriver.switchTo().window(handlesList.get(handlesList.size() - 1));
    webDriver.manage().window().maximize();

A similar approach is used to move back except I get the current handle, then loop through the list to find its position, then move to the handle that is -1 from there.

Hope this is helpful.

Edit: this works in IE9 and Chrome. Not tested in other browsers.