How do I run Firebug within Selenium WebDriver (Selenium 2)?

Question

What's the best way to activate Firebug in Firefox when running Selenium 2?

Edit: Ok, I realize "best" is open to interpretation, but the profile-based solution really used to be a pain with selenium 1.0. So any alternative is considered better until proved worse ;)

Answer 1

You can create your profile in code and dynamically add required add-ons. Let's assume that you saved Firebug XPI into the C:\FF_Profile folder as firebug.xpi (go to Firebug download page, right-click on the "Add To Firefox" and save as C:\FF_Profile\firebug.xpi).

In code:

   final String firebugPath = "C:\\FF_Profile\\firebug.xpi";    FirefoxProfile profile = new FirefoxProfile();           profile.addExtension(new File(firebugPath));    // Add more if needed    WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver(profile); 

This is described in WebDriver FAQ

Answer 2

Do you mean having firebug installed in the browser instance that webdriver launches? If so, you can pass an extension when you instantiate the driver, but the eaisest way is to create a firefox profile with firebug installed and then use the following code before you instantiate the driver:

System.setProperty("webdriver.firefox.profile", "NAME_OF_FIREFOX_PROFILE_WITH_FIREBUG");