Appium Overview - by Daniel Puterman
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Transcript of Appium Overview - by Daniel Puterman
AN OVERVIEW
OF
Appium
Feb. 2014
Daniel Puterman (LinkedIn, twitter)
Sr. developer
whoami?
• Been programming forever.
• Currently lead developer at Applitools (check out our intro video).
• Before:• Vioozer
• iCircl
• Matrix
• Beyond Security
• ….
• Team leader, Developer, Entreprenuer.
“Appium is an open source test automation framework for use with
native and hybrid mobile apps.”
APPIUM AUTOMATES MOBILE APPS
DEMOCode for the demo available in:https://github.com/danielputerman/appium-overview
Automating with Appium
Appium was created with 4 design goals in mind:
• Test the same app you submit to the market place.
• Write tests in any language, on any platform.
• Use standard automation specification / api.
• Open source.
Soooo… Ummmm……
How does it work?
Instruments
UIAutomator
Test Code
OPEN SOURCE
APACHE LICENSE 2.0
https://github.com/appium/appium/blob/master/LICENSE
• Native & Hybrid apps• Real devices & Simulators• Available also on the grid (e.g., SauceLabs)
Supported platforms
And….• Even works with Robots
Show me the code!Code for available in:https://github.com/danielputerman/appium-overview
Finding elements
Appium translates webdriver “find” commands to the relevant automation API provided by each platform:
Four “find” methods available• “name”: The text on the element / accessibility identifier
• “tag_name”: the type of an element, e.g., “button”, “textfield” etc.• Mapping:
https://github.com/appium/appium/blob/master/lib/devices/ios/uiauto/lib/mechanic.js#L29
• “Xpath”: Using the element hierarchy.
• “ID”: Available for Android when running with “selendroid” as device.
Finding elements by name
driver.find_element(:name, “New note”)Searches label text / accessibility fields for each platform (“contentDescription” on android, “name” on iOS)
Finding elements by tag name
driver.find_element(:tag_name, “textfield”)Searches for an element of the specified type.
Finding elements by xpath
@driver.find_element(:xpath, '//text[contains(@value, “another”)]')
@driver.find_element(:xpath, '//text[last()]')
There are limitations, of course!
• Instruments is a singleton• No parallel testing of iOS apps on the same OSX instance.
• Limited VM scalability.
• Appium is a relatively new product and is in the process of maturing.
• Documentation is not bad, but can be improved quite a bit.
• Error messages (especially for iOS) can be sometimes hard to figure out.
The future
• Mobile Json Wire Protocol (part of Selenium 3) https://code.google.com/p/selenium/source/browse/spec-draft.md?repo=mobile
• Joint effort of Appium, Facebook, Ebay and Mozilla
• Appium would implement the protocol + backwordcompatibility.
• Additional platforms
• Appium Doctor
• Advanced gestures
Tips I: Appium setup
• Pay attention to the requirements!• Node version (>= 0.8)
• Android API >= 17 (i.e. 4.2.2 and above)• Windows is still considered beta, though seems to be working fine
• iOS• Mac OS X 10.7 or higher, 10.8.4 recommended
• XCode >= 4.6.3
• Apple Developer Tools (iPhone simulator SDK, command line tools)
• For Mac, make sure you use the XCode version matching the iOSversion you wish to test
• https://github.com/appium/appium/blob/master/docs/running-on-osx.md#testing-against-multiple-ios-sdks
Tips II: running Appium
• Desired capabilities, Desired capabilities, Desired capabilities!
• On linux/Mac use ‘sudo –E’ (or ‘sudo –sE’) to have the environment variables available when Appium is run.
• Notice the IP you listen to when starting Appium (the ‘-a’ parameter):• 127.0.0.1 will only listen to itself and localhost.
• 0.0.0.0 will listen to itself, localhost, 127.0.0.1 and the actual computer IP(s).
• Parallel testing?• Run multiple Appium servers, each listening to a different port, and to a
specific device using the ‘–U’ option.
• Use ‘–full-reset’ when running on Android, so tests will start from a clean environment.
FAQ
Q: Can I automate webview applications?
A: Definitely.1. If you’re using Android, the “device” in the desired capabilities should be set to
“selendroid”.
2. Switch to webview: driver.switch_to_window(“WEBVIEW”)
3. Automate as standard web.
4. If required: driver.switch_to_window(“NATIVE”)
Q: What about an application which activates another application? (FB, maps etc.)
A: Depends• For Android, not a problem.
• For iOS, switching to a different application loses the context in which the automation run. You need to create a new session when coming back from the external application.https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/appium-discuss/38wLkiS_7L0
FAQ Cont.
Q: Can I automate an application already installed on a device (without having the app file on my computer)?
A: Yes and no • Android: You can, either for simulator or for real device (just set ‘app-package’ and ‘app-activity’).
• iOS: No problem if you use a simulator (use ‘bundleId’ as the value to the ‘app’ parameter), but for a real device you must have the app file on your computer.
UI ValidationDEMO
Code for available in:https://github.com/danielputerman/appium-overview
Additional resources
• Appium website• Home: http://appium.io/
• Documentation: http://appium.io/getting-started.html
• Appium forum on google. If you have a question or a problem, this is the place to go.• https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/appium-discuss
• Code for the demos• https://github.com/danielputerman/appium-overview