I'm using IE8 and webdriver. The problem I have is every time webdriver runs I can't touch my computer. Basically the moment I click on a different window it stops working. Because of this I can't run my code in debug mode with break point because I every time I go to Eclipse to manually execute the break point webdriver doesn't work anymore because IE8 is not selected. With Firefox I'm able to do whatever I want but not with IE8. Is there anyway I can fix this problem with IE8?
Thank you!
The short answer is, "No, you can't fix this problem with IE at the moment." There are a number of reasons why window focus is incredibly important with the IE driver. The biggest reason is that you're using so-called "native events" when you're using the IE driver, which simulates mouse and keyboard events at the operating system level rather than just within the browser using, say, JavaScript, and the way IE processes native events is sometimes compromised if the browser window doesn't have focus. More information can be found in a presentation given at the 2012 Selenium Conference.
One approach to solving the problem would be to disable native events with the IE driver. Unfortunately, the simulated events aren't ready for normal use.
