Installing Nexial

For a quick overview on Installing Nexial Automation, check out Installing Nexial Automation The Easy Way

Nexial requires Java 17 or above and Excel 2007/2010 or above; with the latest 64 bit version of Java and Excel recommended. If you don’t have Java installed on your system, follow the next section to do so.

Install Java

Check if Java is installed - Java 17 or above required, and 64-bit Java is highly recommended If possible, consider installing the latest release of Java (latest as of 2022/04/04 is v18).

• Windows
• Mac OSX

1. Open the console by pressing Windows key and the letter R (Win+R) at the same time, type in cmd and press <ENTER>
   
2. From the console, type java -version and press <ENTER>
   Example 1: If you get something like the following, please follow the next step (Step 3) below to download and install Java:
   
   Example 2: If you are not getting the above message, check that the version of Java installed is 17 or above (latest Java recommended). For example, here's a snapshot of an outdated Java installation (1.6.0.45).
   
   Example 3: As of Nexial v4.4, the minimum required version of Java is 17. Please be sure that your Java installation is Java 17 or above (the latest Java recommended):
   
   If your Java installation is outdated/unsupported, please follow the next step (Step 3) below to download and install Java.
3. To download Java, visit one of the following links:
   • Oracle Java SE Development Kit 18
   • OpenJava 18, GNU GPL v2
   • Amazon Corretto Java 18 (OpenJDK)
   • Adoptium OpenJDK Java (latest)
   Nexial is compatible with all these distributions of Java. Note that Oracle's distribution (first link) comes with a commercial license for corporate use. All other distributions can be obtained free of charge, and are actively used by many Nexialists.
   When selecting a suitable distribution for your operating system, it is highly recommended to select the 64bit version, if possible, for better performance and memory management.

1. Open the Terminal app, or open Spotlight (CMD-Space) and then type, terminal and press <ENTER>
   
2. From the console, type java -version and press <ENTER>
   Example 1: If you get something like the following, please follow the next step (Step 3) below to download and install Java:
   
   Example 2: If you are not getting the above message, check that the version of Java installed is 17 or above (latest Java recommended). For example, here's a snapshot of an outdated Java installation (1.6.0.45).
   
   Example 3: As of Nexial v4.4, the minimum required version of Java is 17. Please be sure that your Java installation is Java 17 or above (the latest Java recommended):
   
   If your Java installation is outdated/unsupported, please follow the next step (Step 3) below to download and install Java.
   
3. To download Java, visit one of the following links:
   • Oracle Java SE Development Kit 18
   • OpenJava 18, GNU GPL v2
   • Amazon Corretto Java 18 (OpenJDK)
   • Adoptium OpenJDK Java (latest)
   Nexial is compatible with all these distributions of Java. Note that Oracle's distribution (first link) comes with a commercial license for corporate use. All other distributions can be obtained free of charge, and are actively used by many Nexialists.
   When selecting a suitable distribution for your operating system, it is highly recommended to select the 64bit version, if possible, for better performance and memory management.

Using Nexial Installer

Note: Nexial requires Java 17 or above and Excel 2007/2010 or above. If you don’t have Java installed on your system (the latest Java recommended), please follow the section above.

• Windows
• Mac OSX

1. To keep things more structured, we will create a new directory for our installation process:
   Navigate to your local hard drive and create a new folder called **projects** (i.e. C:\projects).
   
2. Click the following link to begin downloading the Nexial installer: Nexial Installer.
3. Next, locate the downloaded zip file in your Downloads folder.
   
4. Unzip the nexial-installer.zip file into the C:\projects\ directory that you just created.
   To do this, right-click on nexial-installer.zip, select Extract All and then type in C:\projects:
   
5. Navigate to C:\projects\ directory and double click on the newly created nexial-installer folder, then double click the bin folder:
   
6. Double click install-latest.cmd file (NOT the install-latest.sh file).
   
7. Let the command prompt run; this may take a while. When it finishes, it should close itself and you now have the latest Nexial installed onto your computer!

Create a new directory under your HOME directory named projects. Both Nexial (the automation platform) and Nexial Installer will be installed individually under this directory.

1. Open Finder:
   
2. Navigate to your HOME directory via shortcut COMMAND-SHIFT-G, then type in ~/:
   
3. Create a new directory via shortcut CONTROL-SHIFT-n, then type in projects:
   
4. Click the following link to begin downloading the Nexial installer: Nexial Installer
   
   By default, it will be downloaded to the Downloads directory. Move this file to the newly created projects directory (`~/projects`):
   
5. Rename the Nexial Installer zip by removing its version number from the zip file. That way, it will unzip to a directory named as nexial-installer (instead of nexial-installer-1.4.7):
   
   
   
6. Double-click on nexial-installer.zip to start unzipping this file. This will unzip nexial-installer.zip to a directory named as nexial-installer:
   
   Note that the unzip directory contains a bin and a lib directory.
7. Expand `nexial-installer` and then expand `bin` directory. Right-click on installer-latest.sh (NOT installer-latest.cmd). Choose either Terminal.app or iTerm.app:
   
   
   1. If none of the terminal app shows up on the list: click "other" then in the drop down menu labeled "Enable:" select "All Applications". From here, navigate through the Applications folder then enter the Utilities folder and select the Terminal application.
   2. iTerm.app: iTerm is an excellent terminal replacement for MacOSX's default Terminal.app. This is optional to install or run Nexial. To install iTerm, please download it from iTerm2 download page.
8. Nexial installation will commence:
   
   
   Give it a few minutes or so, Nexial installation will complete and you will have yourself the latest Nexial installed on your computer!
   

Check Excel Version

Nexial requires Excel 2007/2010 or above. It requires the use of XLSX format (old XLS format not supported). As a free-of-charge alternative, WPS is also an excellent option to read/edit XLSX files.

Checking Browser Availability and Version

1. Internet Explorer - Nexial at this time only supports Internet Explorer 9 or above. In the future we might consider older versions of Internet Explorer. Nexial however will support either 32 or 64 bit.
2. Microsoft Edge - Built on the Chromium project, this is Microsoft’s latest offering for Internet browser. Nexial’s support for Edge will be similar to that of Chrome (since both browsers are based on the same browser architecture).
3. Firefox - as stated on Selenium’s website: “…Support for Firefox is the latest release, the previous release, the latest ESR release and the previous ESR release…” However there is a high likelihood that older versions of Firefox will work as well. Support from Nexial team is provided on a case-by-case basis.
4. Chrome - latest and almost all recent versions are supported. Older version can be supported via using the corresponding older versions of chrome driver.
5. Safari - version 9 or above is supported, with the latest most likely to be most stable in terms of support.

Starting Your First Project

Now that you have Nexial installed, we can create our first Nexial Project!
Click here for a guide on starting your first Nexial Test Automation.