How to wait for an element in a list of elements with selenium java

When working with multiple elements retrieved as a list of web elements, sometimes we need to wait for a specific element in that list to be visible before performing actions.
Here are two common approaches to achieve this.

Method 1: Using xpath and WebDriverWait

In this method, we identify the required element by xpath and wait using WebDriverWait

import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebElement;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.ExpectedConditions;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.WebDriverWait;
import org.testng.annotations.Test;

import java.time.Duration;
import java.util.List;

public class SampleTest {

WebDriver driver = null;

@Test
public void waitUsingXPath() {
    driver = new ChromeDriver();
    driver.get("https://example.com");

    WebElement elem = driver.findElement(By.xpath("//a[1]"));

    // Wait for element to be visible
    WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, Duration.ofSeconds(60));
    wait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOf(elem));

    System.out.println("Element is now visible: " + elem.getText());
}

}

Method 2: Using WebDriverWait with ExpectedConditions

In this method, we identify the required element by its index in the list and wait until it becomes visible.

import java.time.Duration;
import java.util.List;

public class SampleTest {

WebDriver driver = null;

@Test
public void waitUsingListIndex() {
    driver = new ChromeDriver();
    driver.get("https://example.com");

    List<WebElement> list = driver.findElements(By.tagName("a"));

    // Get the first element
    WebElement elem = list.get(0);

    // Wait for element to be visible
    WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, Duration.ofSeconds(60));
    wait.until(ExpectedConditions.visibilityOf(elem));

    System.out.println("Element is now visible: " + elem.getText());
}

}

Method 3: Using a Custom Wait Method with Thread.sleep()

Here we create our own wait loop to repeatedly check if the element is displayed, pausing between checks.

import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebElement;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;
import org.testng.annotations.Test;

import java.util.List;

public class SampleTest {

WebDriver driver = null;

@Test
public void waitUsingCustomLoop() throws InterruptedException {
    driver = new ChromeDriver();
    driver.get("https://example.com");

    List<WebElement> list = driver.findElements(By.tagName("a"));

    // Get the first element
    WebElement elem = list.get(0);

    // Custom wait method
    waitForElement(elem, 60);
    System.out.println("Element is now visible: " + elem.getText());
}

public void waitForElement(WebElement elem, int maxTime) throws InterruptedException {
    int elapsedTime = 0;

    while (elapsedTime < maxTime) {
        if (elem.isDisplayed()) {
            break;
        }
        Thread.sleep(5000); // Wait for 5 seconds
        elapsedTime += 5;
    }
}

}

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