5 April 2024 Leave a comment Tech-Help
If you’re starting out with Appium for automating Android applications, setting up the environment can seem daunting. This guide will walk you through the process, from launching the Appium server to writing and running your first test case.
Launching the Appium Server
To begin with, you need to start the Appium server. If you have successfully launched the server, you should see a message similar to this:
info: Welcome to Appium v0.8.1 (REV ***********************************)
info: Appium REST http interface listener started on 0.0.0.0:4723
info - socket.io started
You can verify that the server is up and running by navigating to localhost:4723/wd/hub/status in your browser, which should return server details.
Integrating with Selenium
With the Appium server running, the next step is to use Selenium WebDriver for your preferred programming language (e.g., Python, Java, C#). This guide provides an example using C#, but the concepts are similar across languages.
Here’s how you can set up your test in C#: First, add Selenium to your C# class:
using OpenQA.Selenium.Remote;Then, define your desired capabilities:
DesiredCapabilities caps = new DesiredCapabilities();
caps.SetCapability("app-package", "com.myapp.test");
caps.SetCapability("browserName", "");
caps.SetCapability("device", "Android");
caps.SetCapability("app-activity", "com.myapp.SplashActivity");
caps.SetCapability("takesScreenshot", true);
caps.SetCapability("version", "4.1.2");
caps.SetCapability("device ID", "uniquedeviceid");
caps.SetCapability("app", @"C:\path to\app\on\pc\app.apk");
These capabilities include important details about the app and the device you want to test on. Replace the placeholders with your actual app package name, activity names, device version, and so on.
After setting the capabilities, create a RemoteWebDriver object and pass the Appium server URL along with the capabilities you’ve set:
RemoteWebDriver driver = new RemoteWebDriver(new Uri("http://localhost:4723/wd/hub/"), caps);This will sign, install, and launch your app on the connected device, and you’re now ready to write your Selenium tests.
Writing and Running Tests
With the driver object created, you can write Selenium tests using the methods provided by the WebDriver. The Appium server will display output in the console, color-coded to help identify successes and failures. You can also direct output to a file if needed.
It’s important to note that while this guide focuses on a single device, Appium also supports testing on multiple devices. However, setting up Appium Grid for parallel testing may require additional configuration and is beyond the scope of this guide.
Conclusion
By following these steps, you should have a basic Appium environment set up for Android automation. Remember that the specific capabilities and test code will vary based on your application and testing needs. Happy testing!
