Selenium 2 - How to check if element not present while implicitly waiting?

Question

If you check absent elements with the following code:

// ...
driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(30, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
try {
    driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("td.name"));
} catch (NoSuchElementException e) {

    // here you go, element not found

}

You get right result, but running time is always 30 seconds, due to findElement method blocking on the implicit wait.

Is there a way to avoid this behavior, while keeping the implicit wait in place?

<EDIT> tests are going to be generated through Selenium IDE by non-developers, so I need a solution that keeps their job as simple as possible (that's keeping waits implicit!). </EDIT>

Thanks,

Marco

Answer 1

The methods above wait for the provided amount of time even if the element is not present anymore. I wrote my own methods for waiting until element is visible and not present. They work for me. Here they are:

public void waitUntilElementExists(By by, int waitSeconds,
        int noOfRetries) {
    getDriver().manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(waitSeconds, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
    boolean foundElement = false;
    for (int i = 0; i < noOfRetries; i++)
        try {
            getDriver().findElement(by);
            foundElement = true;
            break;
        } catch (Exception e) {
        }
    assertTrue("The searched element was not found after " + noOfRetries * waitSeconds + " seconds!", foundElement);
}

public void waitUntilElementDoesntExist(By by, int waitSeconds,
        int noOfRetries) {
    getDriver().manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(waitSeconds, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
    boolean elementDisappeared = false;
    for (int i = 0; i < noOfRetries; i++)
        try {
            getDriver().findElement(by);
            waitABit(1000 * waitSeconds);
        } catch (Exception e) {
            elementDisappeared = true;
            break;
        }
    assertTrue("The searched element did not disappear after " + noOfRetries * waitSeconds + " seconds!", elementDisappeared);
}

Answer 2

You might be able to do it with xpath selectors. Find the element just before it that you know should be there, then use "following-sibling" to get the next element. Something like:

//td.previous/following-sibling::td

Then check to see that it hasn't returned the "name" one. Of course that would only work if there is another "td" element.

Personally I'd be tempted to drop the implicit waits and just use waits when they are required.

private WebElement cssWait( final String css )
{
    return new WebDriverWait( driver, 30 ).until( new ExpectedCondition< WebElement >()
    {
        @Override
        public WebElement apply( WebDriver d )
        {
            return d.findElement( By.cssSelector( css ) );
        }
    } );
}