How to write a generalized web driver wait in Selenium - selenium

Question

I am trying to write a generalized web driver wait to wait for elements to be clickable. But I found out online of Web Driver waits that are written specific to By.id or By.name.
Suppose Below are two WebElements
public WebElement accountNew() {
WebElement accountNew = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//input[#title='New']"));
waitForElementtobeClickable(accountNew);
return accountNew;
}
public WebElement accountName() {
WebElement accountName = driver.findElement(By.id("acc2"));
waitForElementtobeClickable(accountName);
return accountName;
}
Below is the generalized waitofrelementtobeclickable.
public static void waitForElementtobeClickable(WebElement element) {
try {
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, 10);
wait.until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(element));
System.out.println("Got the element to be clickable within 10 seconds" + element);
} catch (Exception e) {
WebDriverWait wait1 = new WebDriverWait(driver, 20);
wait1.until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(element));
System.out.println("Got the element to be clickable within 20 seconds" + element);
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
but it doesn't seem to work. Any suggestions on how only one generalized code can be written for either xpath, or id, or class or Css can be written?

Answer 1

The problem is not in your function, its in your driver.findElement as you try to locate the element before it exist in the DOM. You can use implicit wait
driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(10, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
This will wait up for 10 seconds for any element to exist in the DOM before when locating it.
Or locate your element using explicit wait
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, 10);
WebElement element = wait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOfElementLocated(By.xpath("//input[#title='New']")));
This will wait up to 10 seconds for your element to be visible.
You can (and should) use both of course.
You can change your code to something like that
public static WebElement waitForElementtobeClickable(By by) {
WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, 10);
WebElement element = wait.until(ExpectedConditions.elementToBeClickable(by));
System.out.println("Got the element to be clickable within 10 seconds" + element);
return element;
}
public WebElement accountNew() {
WebElement accountNew = waitForElementtobeClickable(By.xpath("//input[#title='New']"));
return accountNew;
}
You send your By locator to waitForElementtobeClickable and use elementToBeClickable(By) instead of elementToBeClickable(WebElement), so you can use xpath, id, class etc.