Handle Disabled Form Elements

How it works

There are two ways to ask whether a form control is disabled. isEnabled() returns false for a disabled control, and getAttribute("disabled") returns "true" when the attribute is present and null when it is absent. In the HTML of the Checkboxes page the attribute is written as disabled="", and Selenium still reports it as "true".

A disabled checkbox does not complain when clicked. Clicking firstSelect3 throws nothing; the box simply stays unticked. That silence is why tests check the state up front instead of relying on an exception.

isEnabled() also respects disabled containers. An input inside a <fieldset disabled> reports false even though the input itself has no disabled attribute, so isEnabled() is the safer check when you only need a yes or no.

About the assignment

The starter gives you two boxes from the Checkboxes page: a normal one and one from the disabled row. You report whether each is enabled, then confirm the reason for the disabled one by reading its disabled attribute.

What you will do

1. 1Print isEnabled() for the normal box with the label Normal checkbox enabled:.
2. 2Print isEnabled() for the disabled box with the label Disabled checkbox enabled:.
3. 3Read the disabled box's disabled attribute with getAttribute() and print it with the label Has disabled attr:.

Common mistakes

• Comparing the attribute with "false"

  An enabled element returns null, not "false". Calling equals() on that result throws NullPointerException.

• Treating readonly as disabled

  A read-only field is still enabled. On Text Fields, isEnabled() returns true for the uneditable field even though it cannot be typed into.

• Expecting aria-disabled to count

  isEnabled() only knows the real disabled state. A control marked with aria-disabled="true" still returns true, so read that attribute directly on custom widgets.

In a real test suite

Related lessons

• isEnabled() - Check Enabled StateisEnabled() on text fields, including the read-only case.
• Get Attribute Value with getAttribute()How boolean attributes come back from getAttribute().
• Click a ButtonClicking a disabled button is ignored without an exception too.

To try one of these calls on any page without a task, open the Online Selenium Java Compiler.

Starter code

The editor above opens with this code. Fill in the TODO lines, then run and submit it.

import org.openqa.selenium.*;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();
        driver.get("https://testkru.com/Elements/Checkboxes");
        
        WebElement normal = driver.findElement(By.id("firstSelect1"));
        WebElement disabled = driver.findElement(By.id("firstSelect3"));
        
        // TODO: Check if each is enabled
        // TODO: Check if disabled checkbox has the "disabled" attribute
        
        driver.quit();
    }
}