Dynamically adds "wait_to_" variants for common watir methods. Calling these variants will force the browser to first wait for the browser to finish, and then to wait for the specified element to exist before performing the desired action.

watir_wait.rb

require 'watir'
require 'watir/container'
require 'watir/element'
require 'watir/input_elements'
require 'watir/link'

def support_wait_to_methods
  timeout_in_seconds = 30

  original_method_missing = self.instance_method(:method_missing)
  
  define_method(:method_missing) do |symbol, *args|
    name = symbol.id2name
    if name =~ /^wait_to_/
      new_symbol = name.gsub("wait_to_", "").to_sym
    
      self.wait
      Watir::Waiter.wait_until(timeout_in_seconds) do 
        exists_and_contains_option_if_select?(new_symbol, args)
      end
            
      self.send(new_symbol, *args)
    else
      original_method_missing.bind(self).call(symbol, args)
    end    
  end  

  def exists_and_contains_option_if_select?(symbol, args)
    result = false
    if self.exist?
      result = true
      
      # I really don't like sticking this here. It violates my
      # desgin sense, but I am going to leave it here for now
      # because I am lazy. This will get reworked if I roll this
      # into a proper patch.  
      if symbol == :select
        self.locate
        result = self.include?(args[0])
      end
    end
    result
  end
end

class Watir::InputElement 
  support_wait_to_methods
end

class Watir::Link
  support_wait_to_methods
end