In Selenium Webdriver using Java should I have to use element.click() before element.SendKeys for input text box?

Question

driver.get("<url>")
WebElement name = driver.findElement(By.id(..));
name.click();
name.sendKeys("<input text>");

In the above code is it required to have name.click() first , or is it optional as the field is located and it should be able to send the input without having to click on it first

Answer 1

<input> tag

The <input> tag specifies an input field where the user can enter data. The <input> element can be displayed in different ways, depending on the type attribute. As an example:

• <input type="text"> (default value)
• <input type="button">
• <input type="checkbox">
• <input type="email">
• <input type="file">
• <input type="hidden">
• <input type="number">
• <input type="password">
• <input type="radio">
• <input type="submit">
• <input type="url">

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This usecase

As your usecase involves sending a character sequence presumably it should be of the following type:

<input type="text">

Generally you won't have to invoke click() before invoking sendKeys() but ideally to send a character sequence you need to induce WebDriverWait for the elementToBeClickable() and you can use either of the following locator strategies:

new WebDriverWait(driver, 20).until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(By.id("birtviewer"))).sendKeys("Richard Bernard");
  

However, incase the element is a dynamic element having onfocus event attribute which fires the moment that the element gets focus as follows:

<input type="text" id="fname" onfocus="myFunction(this.id)">

you may require the additional step to click within the element.