How to locate a button defined within a list?

Question

I am writing a selenium script that automates a web-page. I need to click on a button which is defined within a list.

This is the image of my web UI - New Account is the button I am referring to

This is my XML code :

<div id="00B4E000000LQ2C_topNav" class="topNav primaryPalette">
  <div id="00B4E000000LQ2C_subNav" class="subNav">
    <div class="linkBar brandSecondaryBrd">
      <div id="00B4E000000LQ2C_listButtons" class="listButtons">
        <ul class="piped">
          <li>
            <input class="btn" type="button" title="New Account"       onclick="navigateToUrl('/setup/ui/recordtypeselect.jsp?ent=Account&ekp=001&retURL=%2F001%3Ffcf%3D00B4E000000LQ2C%26isdtp%3Dnv%26nonce%3Df8007ad94993912b7ff4149193a6096ccfed4ebb1454e0b9b310ad14b61de71d%26sfdcIFrameOrigin%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fcs83.salesforce.com&save_new_url=%2F001%2Fe%3FretURL%3D%252F001%253Ffcf%253D00B4E000000LQ2C%2526isdtp%253Dnv%2526nonce%253Df8007ad94993912b7ff4149193a6096ccfed4ebb1454e0b9b310ad14b61de71d%2526sfdcIFrameOrigin%253Dhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fcs83.salesforce.com&isdtp=vw','LIST_VIEW','new');" name="new" value="New Account"/>
          </li>
          <li class="lastItem">
        </ul>

I used:

driver.findElement(By.xpath(".//*[@id='00B4E000000LQ2C_listButtons']/ul/li[1]/input")).click();

(Xpath was given by the firebug) but it gives me an error stating

unable to locate elements

Please help me script / locate this button.

Answer 1

You don't have to use XPaths generated by the Firebug and check the element's parents along the way. We can do better, you can write a more reliable and a simpler way to locate the element:

driver.findElement(By.name("new"));

or:

driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("input[name=new]"));

or:

driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("input[value='New Account']"));

---

Note that the XPath expression you have looks valid. You may be experiencing a timing issue and would need to wait for the element presence, visibility or clickability, see: How to wait until an element is present in Selenium?.

And, if the button is inside the iframe, you need to switch to its context and only then search the button:

driver.switchTo().frame("ext-comp-1005");

Answer 2

Hi please try like below

// first way 
driver.findElement(By.xpath("//*[@name='new']")).click();
// second way 
driver.findElement(By.xpath("//*[@class='btn']")).click();
// basically you can use various attributes of input tag with button inside the xpath to click

Update working with i frame

// A short way to identify how many iframe's are present on a web page

List<WebElement> numberOfFrames= driver.findElements(By.tagName("iframe"));
System.out.println("Total Number of iframes present are : " +numberOfFrames.size());
for(int i=0;i<numberOfFrames.size();i++){
    // here u can identify iframes with any of its attribute vale say name,title or which is most suitable.
    System.out.println("Name of the i-frames : " + numberOfFrames.get(i).getAttribute("name"));
}

// Back to your question - button lies inside iframe hence
// key here is before clicking you have to switch to the frame first

driver.switchTo().frame(driver.findElement(By.name("frame name")));

hope this helps you