5 Best Ways to Get Coordinates or Dimensions of an Element with Selenium Python

💡 Problem Formulation: When automating web browsers with Selenium and Python, developers often need to find the position and size of web elements to interact with them correctly. Obtaining these metrics can be crucial for tasks such as clicking on elements, dragging and dropping, or simply verifying the UI layout. The input involves a web element object, and the desired output is its coordinates (x and y positions) and dimensions (width and height).

Method 1: Using the size and location Properties

This approach utilizes the built-in size and location properties of a WebElement in Selenium. The size property returns a dictionary containing the width and height of the element, and the location property provides the x and y coordinates relative to the top-left corner of the document.

Here’s an example:

from selenium import webdriver

browser = webdriver.Chrome()
browser.get('https://www.example.com')
element = browser.find_element_by_id('myElement')
size = element.size
location = element.location
print("Size:", size)
print("Location:", location)
browser.quit()

The output might be:

Size: {'width': 200, 'height': 100}
Location: {'x': 300, 'y': 400}

This code script first opens the Chrome browser and navigates to ‘https://www.example.com’. It then locates an element by its ID ‘myElement’ and retrieves its size and location. The script prints these values and then closes the browser.

Method 2: Using the get_rect() Method

The get_rect() method provides a convenient way to get the size and location of an element in one go. It returns a dictionary with four keys: ‘x’, ‘y’, ‘width’, and ‘height’, covering both the coordinates and dimensions of the element.

Here’s an example:

from selenium import webdriver

browser = webdriver.Chrome()
browser.get('https://www.example.com')
element = browser.find_element_by_id('myElement')
rect = element.get_rect()
print("Rectangle:", rect)
browser.quit()

The output could look like:

Rectangle: {'x': 300, 'y': 400, 'width': 200, 'height': 100}

In this snippet, after initializing the browser and navigating to the example website, the script retrieves the element’s rectangle information using get_rect(). This dictionary holds the positional and dimensional data, which is printed before closing the browser.

Method 3: Using JavaScript Executions

Executing custom JavaScript with Selenium’s execute_script() method allows developers to access element properties directly in the context of the browser. This can be useful if you need more complex calculations or properties not directly exposed by Selenium.

Here’s an example:

from selenium import webdriver

browser = webdriver.Chrome()
browser.get('https://www.example.com')
element = browser.find_element_by_id('myElement')
rect_js = browser.execute_script("return arguments[0].getBoundingClientRect();", element)
print("JS Rectangle:", rect_js)
browser.quit()

The JavaScript execution output could be:

JS Rectangle: {'x': 300, 'y': 400, 'width': 200, 'height': 100, 'top': 400, 'right': 500, 'bottom': 500, 'left': 300}

This snippet demonstrates how to execute a JavaScript command that gets the bounding client rect of the element. The result includes additional properties such as ‘top’, ‘right’, ‘bottom’, and ‘left’, which can be valuable for certain layout calculations.

Method 4: Combining Selenium and CSS Properties

Elements styling information through CSS can often give clues about an element’s dimensions and position. Using Selenium to fetch specific CSS property values is another method to infer size and location.

Here’s an example:

from selenium import webdriver

browser = webdriver.Chrome()
browser.get('https://www.example.com')
element = browser.find_element_by_id('myElement')
width = element.value_of_css_property('width')
height = element.value_of_css_property('height')
print("Width:", width)
print("Height:", height)
browser.quit()

The CSS properties might give you:

Width: 200px
Height: 100px

Through Selenium’s value_of_css_property() method, this code obtains the CSS properties ‘width’ and ‘height’ of an element. It’s important to note, however, that CSS values may not always represent the actual visible size if other CSS properties like transforms are applied.

Bonus One-Liner Method 5: Using List Comprehensions

For a quick and concise way of retrieving the size and location, list comprehensions can be used to streamline the code, especially when you need to retrieve these properties for multiple elements in one line.

Here’s an example:

from selenium import webdriver

browser = webdriver.Chrome()
browser.get('https://www.example.com')
elements = browser.find_elements_by_class_name('myElements')
sizes_locations = [(e.size, e.location) for e in elements]
print(sizes_locations)
browser.quit()

Output for a list of elements could be:

[({'width': 200, 'height': 100}, {'x': 300, 'y': 400}), ..., ...]

This snippet retrieves all elements with the class ‘myElements’ and uses a list comprehension to get a list of tuples, each containing the size and location information.

Summary/Discussion

• Method 1: Size and Location Properties. Strengths: Straightforward and easy to understand. Weaknesses: Requires two separate properties to get complete information.
• Method 2: get_rect() Method. Strengths: Combines coordinates and size in a single call. Weaknesses: Not available in older versions of Selenium.
• Method 3: JavaScript Executions. Strengths: Highly flexible and allows for complex operations. Weaknesses: Requires JavaScript knowledge and might not work with every web element.
• Method 4: CSS Properties. Strengths: Gives insight into how elements are styled. Weaknesses: May not reflect the actual visible size and position due to other style effects.
• Method 5: List Comprehensions. Strengths: Efficient for bulk operations. Weaknesses: Less readable for those not familiar with Python list comprehensions.