Recording Screencast of Selenium Tests

I was looking for ways to record a video/screencast of Selenium Test Run in Java and came across this brilliant tool called Monte Media Library developed by Werner Randelshofer. This post describes using the ScreenRecorder class from Monte Media Library for recording screencast of Selenium Tests in Java.

Little about ScreenRecorder

ScreenRecoder supports “AVI” and “QuickTime” format for recording the video. For “AVI” format you need to install TSCC Codec (Techsmith Screen Capture Codec) while “QuickTime” format is supported by Apple’s QuickTime Player. ScreenRecorder provides multiple configurations for colors, mouse cursor, screen rate, mouse rate, audio etc. on GUI as well as programmatically.

You need to download ScreenRecorder.jar file from Monte’s Home Page. ScreenRecorder.jar can be launched as a standalone GUI for recording actions from Desktop window or you can add this to your project and import ScreenRecorder class for recording screen video programmatically.

Using ScreenRecorder Class

Following example is created in Eclipse and you need to add ScreenRecorder.jar to the build path of Project.

ScreenRecorder.jar contains ScreenRecorder class which can be called from a Selenium Script for recording the test session in following way:

1| Download MonteScreenRecorder.jar

2| Add MonteScreenRecorder.jar into buildpath
3| Locate startRecording() and stopRecording() on apt location
4| Run the test
5| After finishing testrun check the location, C:\Users\username\Videos for recorded video, "ScreenRecording 2013-10-18 at 15.01.43.avi"

import java.awt.*;
import org.monte.media.Format;
import org.monte.media.math.Rational;
import static org.monte.media.AudioFormatKeys.*;
import static org.monte.media.VideoFormatKeys.*;
import org.monte.screenrecorder.ScreenRecorder;

public class className {
private ScreenRecorder screenRecorder;

@Test
public void test01() throws Exception {
className videoRecord = new className();
videoRecord.startRecording(); //Started recording
driver.get("www.xyz.com");
Thread.sleep(2000);
videoRecord.stopRecording(); //Stopped recording

}


 public void startRecording() throws Exception
{       
GraphicsConfiguration gc = GraphicsEnvironment
              .getLocalGraphicsEnvironment()
              .getDefaultScreenDevice()
              .getDefaultConfiguration();

this.screenRecorder = new ScreenRecorder(gc,
              new Format(MediaTypeKey, MediaType.FILE, MimeTypeKey, MIME_AVI),
              new Format(MediaTypeKey, MediaType.VIDEO, EncodingKey, ENCODING_AVI_TECHSMITH_SCREEN_CAPTURE,
                   CompressorNameKey, ENCODING_AVI_TECHSMITH_SCREEN_CAPTURE,
                   DepthKey, 24, FrameRateKey, Rational.valueOf(15),
                   QualityKey, 1.0f,
                   KeyFrameIntervalKey, 15 * 60),
              new Format(MediaTypeKey, MediaType.VIDEO, EncodingKey, "black",
                   FrameRateKey, Rational.valueOf(30)),
              null);
this.screenRecorder.start();    
}

public void stopRecording() throws Exception
{
this.screenRecorder.stop();

}

The ScreenRecorder captures screen interactions like a charm which can be very useful for analysing Selenium Tests.