Click on pseudo element using Selenium

Question

I am trying to use Selenium to click on a ::after pseudo element. I realize that this cannot be done through the WebDriver directly, but cannot seem to figure out a way to do so with Javascript.

Here is what the DOM looks like:

<em class="x-btn-split" unselectable="on" id="ext-gen161">
    <button type="button" id="ext-gen33" class=" x-btn-text">
        <div class="mruIcon"></div>
        <span>Accounts</span>
    </button>
    ::after
</em>

This is what the above element looks like. The Left hand side of the object is the 'button' element and the :after element is the right hand side with the arrow which would bring down a dropdown menu when clicked. As you can see that the right hand side has no identifiers whatsoever and that is partially what is making this difficult to do.

I have seen these two links in stackoverflow and have attempted to combine the answers to form my solution, but to no avail.

Clicking an element in Selenium WebDriver using JavaScript
Locating pseudo element in Selenium WebDriver using JavaScript

Here is one my attempts:

string script = "return window.getComputedStyle(document.querySelector('#ext-gen33'),':before')";
IJavaScriptExecutor js = (IJavaScriptExecutor) Session.Driver;
js.ExecuteScript("arguments[0].click(); ", script);

In which I get this error:

System.InvalidOperationException: 'unknown error: arguments[0].click is not a function
  (Session info: chrome=59.0.3071.115)
  (Driver info: chromedriver=2.30.477700 (0057494ad8732195794a7b32078424f92a5fce41),platform=Windows NT 6.1.7601 SP1 x86_64)'

I've also tried using the Actions class in Selenium to move the mouse in reference to the left hand side, similar to this answer as well. I think it may be because I don't know what the offset is measured in and the documentation doesn't seem to give any indication. I think it is in pixels??

Actions build = new Actions(Session.Driver);
build.MoveToElement(FindElement(By.Id("ext-gen33"))).MoveByOffset(235, 15).Click().Build().Perform();

This attempt seems to click somewhere as it gives no errors, but I'm not really sure where.

I'm attempting to automate Salesforce (Service Cloud) in c# if that helps.

Maybe someone can offer a solution?

Answer 1

I've encounter the same problem while writing Selenium tests for Salesforce and managed to solve it by direct control over mouse using Actions.

Wrapper table for this button has hardcoded width of 250px, and you have spotted that. To locate where the mouse is, you can use contextClick() method instead of Click(). It simulates right mouse button so it will always open browser menu.

If you do:

Actions build = new Actions(Session.Driver);
build.MoveToElement(FindElement(By.Id("ext-gen33"))).ContextClick().Build().Perform();

you will spot that mouse moves to the middle of the WebElement, not the top left corner (I thought that it does too). Since that element width is constant, we can move mouse just by 250 / 2 - 1 to the right and it will work :) code:

Actions build = new Actions(Session.Driver);
build.MoveToElement(FindElement(By.Id("ext-gen33"))).MoveByOffset(124, 0).Click().Build().Perform();

Answer 2

For those who are trying to do this in Python, the solution is below:

elem= driver.<INSERT THE PATH TO ELEMENT HERE> ActionChains(driver).move_to_element_with_offset(elem,249,1).click().perform()

Basically here I'm finding my element in the DOM and assigning to a WebElement. The WebElement is then passed the method move_to_element_with_offset as a param.

I got the px values for the element from developer tools.

PS: use this import- from selenium.webdriver.common.action_chains import ActionChains

You can read more about Action chain class and its method move_to_element_with_offset here: http://selenium-python.readthedocs.io/api.html.

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

Maciej'a answer above worked with WebDriver, but not with the RemoteWebDriver (Selenium 3.12.0) against Firefox V.56. We needed a solution that worked for both local and remote. Ended up using keyboard shortcuts to invoke the Navigation Menu drop down. As an added benefit, this also removes the need to use offsets.

String navigationMenuDropdownShortcutKeys = Keys.chord(Keys.ESCAPE, "v");

new Actions(driver)
 .sendKeys(navigationMenuDropdownShortcutKeys)
 .perform();