WebDriverWait how to wait until an item exists or doesn't exist?

Question

I am running a test using Selenium WebDriver and if a user doesn't have access rights a div does not exist on the page. I am trying to do a wait so that if the item is displayed it returns true but if it hits the timeout it returns false.

    public bool SummaryDisplayed()
    {
        var wait = new WebDriverWait(_driver, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(5));
        var myElement = wait.Until(x => x.FindElement(By.Id("summaryPage")));
        return  myElement.Displayed;
    }

I don't want to use Thread.Sleep because if the element is there after 2 seconds I want it to proceed. But if the element isn't there after 5 seconds it should return false. I don't want it to throw an exception, in some test cases I am expecting it to not exist. Is there a way I can suppress the exception and return false after the timeout? Thanks

Answer 1

This will work for you, I think.

public bool SummaryDisplayed()
{
    try
    {
        var wait = new WebDriverWait(_driver, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(5));
        var myElement = wait.Until(x => x.FindElement(By.Id("summaryPage")));
        return  myElement.Displayed;
    }
    catch
    {
        return false;
    }
}

Answer 2

You can use a generic extension method to wait for an element to be visible within a specified wait; and then just call it from your methods as below:

public bool SummaryDisplayed()
{
    var summaryElement = driver.WaitGetElement(By.Id("summaryPage"), 5, true);
    return (summaryElement !=null);
} 

The extension method simply wraps the WebDriverWait and waits for the element to exist/be displayed, depending on what you asked for. If element is not found within the specified wait, it returns null. I use this extension instead of FindElement() in my frameworks.

public static IWebElement WaitGetElement(this IWebDriver driver, By by, int timeoutInSeconds, bool checkIsVisible=false)
{
IWebElement element;
var wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(timeoutInSeconds));

try
{
    if (checkIsVisible)
    {
        element = wait.Until(ExpectedConditions.ElementIsVisible(by));
    }
    else
    {
        element = wait.Until(ExpectedConditions.ElementExists(by));
    }
}
catch (NoSuchElementException) { element = null; }
catch (WebDriverTimeoutException) { element = null; }
catch (TimeoutException) { element = null; }

return element;
}