Native Selenium WebDriver Access

Accessing the Native Selenium WebDriver

Did you know that you can use the native Selenium WebDriver with SHAFT whenever you need it?

NativeDriverAccess.java

SHAFT.GUI.WebDriver driver = new SHAFT.GUI.WebDriver();
WebDriver nativeDriver = driver.getDriver();

Example:

NativeDriverExample.java

SHAFT.GUI.WebDriver driver = new SHAFT.GUI.WebDriver();
WebDriver nativeDriver = driver.getDriver();

// Use native Selenium directly when needed
nativeDriver.findElement(By.id("lname")).sendKeys("Smith");

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Wrapping an Existing WebDriver Instance

You can wrap any existing org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver instance with SHAFT capabilities. This is useful when migrating from plain Selenium to SHAFT incrementally, or when a third-party library hands you a raw driver.

WrapExistingWebDriver.java

import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;
import com.shaft.driver.SHAFT;

// Start with a plain Selenium driver
WebDriver rawDriver = new ChromeDriver();
rawDriver.get("https://example.com");

// Wrap it — all SHAFT fluent actions, smart waits, and reporting now apply
SHAFT.GUI.WebDriver driver = new SHAFT.GUI.WebDriver(rawDriver);

driver.assertThat().browser().title().contains("Example").perform();
driver.element().click(By.id("ctaButton"));

driver.quit();

Why Wrap a Driver?

Benefit	Description
Fluent API	Chain browser, element, and validation actions
Smart waits	Auto-wait for elements to be interactable
Allure reporting	Steps and screenshots captured automatically
Incremental migration	Introduce SHAFT into existing Selenium projects gradually

tip

After wrapping, call driver.quit() (not rawDriver.quit()) to ensure SHAFT's lifecycle hooks run correctly and the Allure report is finalised.