@AndroidFindBy and @iOSFindBy for native app automation

[email2vimalraj]

As suggested in #68 (comment):

We should have the annotations @AndroidFindBy and @iOSFindBy support for native apps also. Currently it supports only for the web view.

I would also suggest from my point of view to make AppiumDriver as interface instead of keeping it as abstract.

[TikhomirovSergey]

Hi!
They are designed generally for native apps. Please provide the detailed report of the problem that you've found. Stacktraces, locators, code samples etc. What locators do you use? What java_client version/server version? Below examples that work against native app:

@FindBy(css = "someBrowserCss") //this locator is used when here is browser (desktop or mobile) 
@iOSFindBy(uiAutomator = ".elements()[0]") //this locator is used when here is iOS native content 
@AndroidFindBy(className = "android.widget.TextView") //this locator is used when here is Android 
//native content 
public List<WebElement> androidOriOsTextViews; 


@AndroidFindBy(uiAutomator = "new UiSelector().resourceId(\"android:id/text1\")") 
public List<WebElement> androidUIAutomatorViews; 

@AndroidFindBy(uiAutomator = "new UiSelector().resourceId(\"android:id/text1\")") 
public List<MobileElement> mobileElementViews; //Also with Appium page object tools it is 
//possible to declare RemoteWebElement or any MobileElement subclass 

@FindBy(className = "android.widget.TextView") 
public List<MobileElement> mobiletextVieWs; 

@AndroidFindBy(uiAutomator = "new UiSelector().resourceId(\"android:id/text1\")") 
public List<RemoteWebElement> remoteElementViews; 


@AndroidFindBy(id = "android:id/text1") 
public WebElement textView; 

Full samples:
Android 1
Android 2
Android 3
iOS

About interface. Actually it exists. MobileDriver. There is new extended version that probably will be merged.

[Simon-Kaz]

@TikhomirovSergey I'm having issues with the following annotation:

@iOSFindBy(accessibility = "Tracker")
private MobileElement trackerButton;

When i use it, the following shows up in the the appium logs:

au.getElementsById('trackerButton')
au.getElementsByName('trackerButton')
au.getElementsByAccessibilityId('trackerButton')

It looks like the annotation is not passing the selector?

EDIT: I've just tried changing the "accessibility" to "name", and it's the same.

[TikhomirovSergey]

Hi @Simon-Kaz
It is interesting. Is it browser test?

[Simon-Kaz]

Native app.

[TikhomirovSergey]

Ok. I will try to repaet this today.
What java_client version you use? It will be nice if you provide capabilities that you use.

[Simon-Kaz]

Sure, I'm getting the data that I have right now... Will edit this post in a minute.

Java client 2.2.0. I'm running it on a highly customized spring+cucumber jvm framework but I reproduced it on regular cucumber jvm as well. I'll try and reproduce it without cucumber as well.

 capabilities.setCapability("platformName", "iOS");
 capabilities.setCapability("platformVersion", "8.1.2");
 capabilities.setCapability("deviceName", "iPhone 6");
 capabilities.setCapability("udid","random_digits");
 capabilities.setCapability("bundleId","bundle.id");
 capabilities.setCapability("autoAcceptAlerts","true");

 driver = new IOSDriver(new URL("http://0.0.0.0:4723/wd/hub"), capabilities);

[TikhomirovSergey]

...and... I've forgotten to ask. Does this find the wrong element or throw the NoSuchElementException?

[Simon-Kaz]

No such element exception, as there's no element with that name/id/label.

[Simon-Kaz]

OK it works outside of my project, guess I'll have to do some digging and find out why the annotation is not working :(

[TikhomirovSergey]

Can you define the path to your app like this or that. Does it help?
Do you define the path to your app via Appium desktop UI? What Appium server version you use?

[TikhomirovSergey]

If I'm right then it is possible that your problem is related to appium/appium#4091. Given capabilities and capabilities that are defined in the server side via desktop UI are not merged. Then you have to define the path to app in Java code till it fixed.

[TikhomirovSergey]

@Simon-Kaz @email2vimalraj

It seems I'm right. Please look below.

Here are settings:

The code:

The command

 ((IOSDriver) driver).getCapabilities()

returns

So Appium page object tools attempt to handle it the way like here is mobile or desktop browser. Because there is no FindBy and iOS/AndroidFindBy are for apps it tries to locate the element using Id or name that supposed to be equal to field name.

org.openqa.selenium.NoSuchElementException: Can't locate an element by this strategy: by id or name "iosButton"
For documentation on this error, please visit: http://seleniumhq.org/exceptions/no_such_element.html
Build info: version: '2.43.1', revision: '5163bceef1bc36d43f3dc0b83c88998168a363a0', time: '2014-09-10 09:43:55'
System info: host: 'Mac-Admin.local', ip: '192.168.42.129', os.name: 'Mac OS X', os.arch: 'x86_64', os.version: '10.9.5', java.version: '1.8.0_25'

It think the root cause has been described in referred issue appium/appium#4091. The workaround in my previous message.

[Simon-Kaz]

Sorry for late response - The reason I'm not specifying an app capability is because I have the app pre-installed with ideviceinstaller. I use bundleId and udid to run the tests.

Ideally I do not want the app installed using appium at all.

[Simon-Kaz]

I'd keep it open until I find a resolution, as it's still a problem for me. Once I find a solution, I'll update this ticket (for future reference if someone encounters the same issue) and close it then.

[TikhomirovSergey]

Ok. I think the app should be calculated on the server-side and returned in capabilities (in your case). What do you think about this feature? If you find this cool and appium/appium#4091 is not relevant please open a new issue here: https://github.com/appium/appium/issues

Also I'll try to find another way to detect what is it right now - an app or browser.