For something as simple as checking a checkbox you would think that all the different browser drivers would implement this in the same way. But sadly this is not the case. Firefox expects that you click on a checkbox to check or uncheck it whereas both the IEDriver and ChromeDriver expect you to type a space to do the same. This is all well and good for running a simple once off test, but we cant be expected to change code and re-build every time we want to test in a different browser.

Thankfully there is a solution at hand. Once we know which browser is currently running the test, we can decide which method to use. I have provided a C# and a Java code snippet below:

C#
[code]
IWebElement checkbox = driver.FindElement(By.Id(“ElementID”));

if (((RemoteWebDriver)driver).Capabilities.BrowserName == “firefox”)
{
// Firefox
checkbox.Click();
}
else
{
// Chrome and IE
checkbox.SendKeys(Keys.Space);
}
[/code]

Java
[code]
WebElement checkbox = driver.findElement(By.id(“idOfTheElement”);

if (driver.Capabilities.BrowserName.Equals(“firefox”))
{
checkbox.Click();
}
else
{
checkbox.SendKeys(Keys.Space);
}

[/code]

If you come across any other discrepancies between the different driver implementations let us know in the comments.