Introduction

I came across Appium as an open source tool for mobile testing in the Google Testing Conference 2013. The details from the presentation can be found GTAC 2013 – Appium: Automation for mobile apps.
The previous open source mobile automation tool that I had experience with are quite restricted in terms of its whether for merely iOS like Frank or Android like Robotium.
Appium is a specialised testing tool for both native and hybrid iOS and Android apps, including web applications on mobile web browser.
In my coming posts, I am going to share with you my experience in spiking out the tool in both Mac and Windows environment.

Appium working in iOS

Install

  • Get a Mac. My colleague of mine has tried to set up a virtual machine to run XCode on Windows but don’t seem to have much luck.
  • Install node.js as it is needed to “fire up” Appium, otherwise you can download the Appium app
  • Download Appium as illustrated from the screen shot taken from the Appium website
You are able to find sample test code written in many different languages. The good thing about Appium is that it is not language dependent, so feel free to choose any language that you’re more familiar with. In my case, I’ve chose Ruby.

Run test for iOS App

  • Start Appium by typing appium & in the Appium folder
  • Start iPhone simulator by going to Xcode->Open Developer Tool->iOS Simulator. Under iOS Simulator->Hardware->Device, you can select the device type. Eg: iPad or iPhone

  • Ensure we set the path of app correct in sample-code/sample-code/examples/ruby/cucumber_ios/features/support
  • Go to the sample-code folder and run the Cucumber test