Hosting a Selenium on Square Cloud

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Creating a New Selenium Script

• Before you start, make sure you have Python and pip installed on your system. If you don’t have them yet, you can download them from the official Python website and the official Pip website.
• Next, you will need to create an account on Square Cloud, which can be done through the sign up page. You can use your email to create an account.
• Finally, you need to have an active paid plan on your account. You can view our plans and purchase one according to your needs here.

With Python and pip installed, you can create a new Selenium script. First, install Selenium using pip:

pip install selenium

Next, create a new Python file (for example, main.py) and add the following code to create a basic Selenium script:

import time
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service

# Define options for Chromium
options = Options()
options.add_argument("--headless")  # Run in the background. This means that the browser runs without opening a browser window.
options.add_argument("--no-sandbox")  # Required when you are running as root. This allows Selenium to start in a user-unsupported environment.
options.add_argument("--disable-dev-shm-usage")  # This overcomes limitations when dealing with elements on large pages.

# Initialize the driver
service = Service('/usr/bin/chromedriver') # On Square Cloud, the path to the Chromium driver is '/usr/bin/chromedriver'
driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=service, options=options)

# Set the window size to larger dimensions
driver.set_window_size(1920, 1080)  # Adjust these values as needed

# Open the web page
driver.get('https://www.google.com')

# Loop to take a print of the page every 1 minute
while True:
    driver.save_screenshot('page.png')
    print("Page print saved.")
    time.sleep(60)  # Pause for 60 seconds

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Managing Dependencies with the requirements.txt file

The requirements.txt file is a file that lists all the external libraries needed for your project. You should list all the libraries that your project will use, excluding native libraries like random and datetime. This file should be included when submitting your application to Square Cloud.

selenium

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Chromium path

In the example provided above, it’s not necessary to explicitly define the Chromium path because the Selenium WebDriver can automatically find the browser if it’s installed in a standard system location. The ChromeDriver, specified with Service('/usr/bin/chromedriver'), knows where to look for the Chromium/Chrome executable.

In Square Cloud, Chromium is installed in /usr/bin/chromium, which is standard. Therefore, the Selenium WebDriver can automatically locate it through the specified ChromeDriver. Thus, there’s no need to explicitly specify the Chromium path in the code, unless there are specific reasons to do so, such as custom installations or different environment configurations.

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Creating the squarecloud config file

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Uploading Project to Square Cloud

After preparing your project files, you can now upload them to Square Cloud and host your project.

• Dashboard Upload
• CLI Upload

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Additional Resources

For more information about Selenium and its tools, visit the official Selenium documentation. There, you’ll find detailed guides, tutorials, and API documentation to help you make the most out of Selenium.

If you continue to experience any issues, please don’t hesitate to contact our support team.