Element Identification Best Practices

Choosing the right element identification strategy is critical to building stable tests. SHAFT encourages Selenium By objects and its Locator Builder.

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Use By Objects, Not @FindBy

The @FindBy annotation (from Selenium's PageFactory) has several drawbacks:

@FindBy	By Objects
Evaluated at runtime via reflection — errors appear late	Evaluated immediately — compile-time safety
Cannot be reused across methods easily	Standard Java objects — pass, store, and compose freely
Tied to PageFactory.initElements() lifecycle	No initialization ceremony required
Hard to make dynamic or conditional	Easy to build dynamically with logic

warning

@FindBy with PageFactory can lead to StaleElementReferenceException issues and adds unnecessary complexity. SHAFT's built-in element handling with By objects already provides smart waits, auto-scrolling, and retry logic.

Recommended Pattern

Define your locators as By constants in your Page Object class:

LoginPage.java

import org.openqa.selenium.By;

public class LoginPage {
    // Locators as By objects
    private final By usernameInput = By.id("username");
    private final By passwordInput = By.id("password");
    private final By loginButton = By.cssSelector("button[type='submit']");
    private final By errorMessage = By.className("error-message");
}

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Dynamic Element Identification

Sometimes a locator depends on runtime data — a product name, a row index, or a user-provided value. With By objects you can build locators dynamically:

DynamicLocators.java

public By getProductAddToCartButton(String productName) {
    return By.cssSelector("div[data-product='" + productName + "'] button.add-to-cart");
}

public By getTableCell(int row, int col) {
    return By.cssSelector("table tr:nth-child(" + row + ") td:nth-child(" + col + ")");
}

Using SHAFT Locator Builder for Dynamic Locators

The SHAFT Locator Builder provides a fluent API for building locators without raw XPath or CSS:

LocatorBuilderDynamic.java

public By getProductButton(String productName) {
    return SHAFT.GUI.Locator.hasTagName("button")
        .hasAttribute("data-product", productName)
        .build();
}

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Cross-Platform Locators (Android and iOS)

When testing the same app on both Android and iOS, the locators are often different. The recommended pattern is to use a helper method or enum that returns the correct locator based on the current platform:

CrossPlatformLocators.java

import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.Platform;
import com.shaft.driver.SHAFT;

public class LoginPage {
    private By getUsernameInput() {
        if (SHAFT.Properties.platform.targetPlatform().equals(Platform.ANDROID.name())) {
            return By.id("com.example.app:id/username_input");
        } else {
            return By.name("username_field");
        }
    }

    private By getLoginButton() {
        if (SHAFT.Properties.platform.targetPlatform().equals(Platform.ANDROID.name())) {
            return By.id("com.example.app:id/login_btn");
        } else {
            return By.xpath("//XCUIElementTypeButton[@name='Login']");
        }
    }
}

tip

For a cleaner approach, you can centralize platform-specific locators in a constants file or use an enum-based strategy to avoid if-else blocks throughout your page objects. See the Cross-Platform Strategy page for more details.

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Best Practices Summary

1. Use By objects — They are simple, composable, and work naturally with SHAFT's element handling.
2. Avoid @FindBy / PageFactory — It adds complexity without benefits when using SHAFT.
3. Build locators dynamically when they depend on runtime data.
4. Use SHAFT Locator Builder for readable, maintainable locators without raw XPath or CSS.
5. Abstract platform differences behind helper methods when supporting both Android and iOS.