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19 - 23.02.24 - Eclipse RCP

Cross component Android testing with UI Automator. This tutorial describes how go backbox testing for Android applications including applications to which you do not have the source code.

1. Cross-component blackbox user interface testing

1.1. Using UI Automator for cross component testing

Functional or black-box user interface testing does test the complete application and not single components of your application.

The Android SDK contains the uiautomator Java library for creating user interface tests and provides an engine to run these user interface tests. Both tools require Android 4.3 (API level 18) on the device that is used for testing.

Androids uiautomator provides the UiDevice class to communicate with the device, the UiSelector class to search for elements on the screen and the UiObject which presents user interface elements and is created based on the UiSelector class. The UiCollection class allows to select a number of user interface elements at the same time and UiScrollable allows to scroll in a view to find an element.

1.2. Accessing the view information with uiautomatorviewer

Android provides the uiautomatorviewer tool, which allows you to analyze the user interface of an application. You can use this tool to find the index, text or attribute of the application.

This tool allows non-programmers to analyze an application and develop tests for it via the uiautomator library. It is depicted in the following screenshot.

To launch the uiautomatorviewer tool, switch on the command line to the android-sdk/tools/ directory and start the tool via uiautomatorviewer.

2. Making UI Automator available

2.1. Configuration in your project

To use UI Automator for your tests, add the following dependency to the Gradle build file of your app. You must also specify the AndroidJUnitRunner as value for the testInstrumentationRunner parameter in the build.gradle file of your app. The following listing is an example for that.

apply plugin: 'com.android.application'

android {
    compileSdkVersion 19
    buildToolsVersion "23.0.0"

    defaultConfig {
        applicationId "com.vogella.android.test.uiautomator"
        minSdkVersion 19
        targetSdkVersion 23
        versionCode 1
        versionName "1.0"
        testInstrumentationRunner "android.support.test.runner.AndroidJUnitRunner"
    }
    buildTypes {
        release {
            minifyEnabled false
            proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android.txt'), 'proguard-rules.pro'
        }
    }
}

dependencies {
    androidTestCompile 'com.android.support.test:runner:0.3'
    androidTestCompile 'junit:junit:4.12'
    testCompile 'junit:junit:4.12'
    androidTestCompile 'org.hamcrest:hamcrest-library:1.3'
    androidTestCompile 'com.android.support.test:runner:0.3'
    androidTestCompile 'com.android.support.test:rules:0.3'
    androidTestCompile 'com.android.support.test.uiautomator:uiautomator-v18:2.1.1'
}

It is also recommended turning of the animation on the Android device which is used for testing. _

apply plugin: 'com.android.application'

android {
    compileSdkVersion 19
    buildToolsVersion "23.0.0"

    defaultConfig {
        applicationId "com.vogella.android.test.uiautomator"
        minSdkVersion 19
        targetSdkVersion 23
        versionCode 1
        versionName "1.0"
        testInstrumentationRunner "android.support.test.runner.AndroidJUnitRunner"
    }
    buildTypes {
        release {
            minifyEnabled false
            proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android.txt'), 'proguard-rules.pro'
        }
    }
}

dependencies {
    androidTestCompile 'com.android.support.test:runner:0.3'
    androidTestCompile 'junit:junit:4.12'
    testCompile 'junit:junit:4.12'
    androidTestCompile 'org.hamcrest:hamcrest-library:1.3'
    androidTestCompile 'com.android.support.test:runner:0.3'
    androidTestCompile 'com.android.support.test:rules:0.3'
    androidTestCompile 'com.android.support.test.uiautomator:uiautomator-v18:2.1.1'
}

3.2. Create test

Create the following test in your _androidTest folder.

package com.vogella.android.test.uiautomator;

import android.content.Intent;
import android.content.pm.PackageManager;
import android.content.pm.ResolveInfo;
import android.support.test.InstrumentationRegistry;
import android.support.test.rule.ActivityTestRule;
import android.support.test.runner.AndroidJUnit4;
import android.support.test.uiautomator.By;
import android.support.test.uiautomator.UiDevice;
import android.support.test.uiautomator.UiObject;
import android.support.test.uiautomator.UiObjectNotFoundException;
import android.support.test.uiautomator.UiScrollable;
import android.support.test.uiautomator.UiSelector;
import android.support.test.uiautomator.Until;

import org.hamcrest.Matchers;
import org.junit.Before;
import org.junit.Rule;
import org.junit.Test;
import org.junit.runner.RunWith;

import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.*;
import static org.junit.Assert.*;

@RunWith(AndroidJUnit4.class)
public class MyUiAutomatorTest {
    @Rule
    public ActivityTestRule<MainActivity> mActivityRule
        = new ActivityTestRule<MainActivity>(MainActivity.class);

    private UiDevice mDevice;

    @Before
    public void setUp() {
        // Initialize UiDevice instance

        mDevice = UiDevice.getInstance(InstrumentationRegistry.getInstrumentation());
        // Start from the home screen
        mDevice.pressHome();

        mDevice.wait(Until.hasObject(By.pkg(getLauncherPackageName()).depth(0)), 1000);
    }

    @Test
    public void checkSettings() throws UiObjectNotFoundException {

        // Simulate a short press on the HOME button.
        mDevice.pressHome();

        // We’re now in the home screen. Next, we want to simulate
        // a user bringing up the All Apps screen.
        // If you use the uiautomatorviewer tool to capture a snapshot
        // of the Home screen, notice that the All Apps button’s
        // content-description property has the value “Apps”. We can
        // use this property to create a UiSelector to find the button.

        UiObject allAppsButton = mDevice.findObject(new UiSelector().description("Apps"));

        // Simulate a click to bring up the All Apps screen.
        allAppsButton.clickAndWaitForNewWindow();

        // In the All Apps screen, the Settings app is located in
        // the Apps tab. To simulate the user bringing up the Apps tab,
        // we create a UiSelector to find a tab with the text
        // label “Apps”.
        UiObject appsTab = mDevice.findObject(new UiSelector().text("Apps"));

        // Simulate a click to enter the Apps tab.
        appsTab.click();

        // Next, in the apps tabs, we can simulate a user swiping until
        // they come to the Settings app icon. Since the container view
        // is scrollable, we can use a UiScrollable object.
        UiScrollable appViews = new UiScrollable(
                new UiSelector().scrollable(true));

        // Set the swiping mode to horizontal (the default is vertical)
        appViews.setAsHorizontalList();

        // create a UiSelector to find the Settings app and simulate
        // a user click to launch the app.
        UiObject settingsApp = appViews
                .getChildByText(new UiSelector()
                                .className(android.widget.TextView.class.getName()),
                        "Settings");
        settingsApp.clickAndWaitForNewWindow();

        // Validate that the package name is the expected one
        UiObject settingsValidation = new UiObject(
                new UiSelector()
                        .packageName("com.android.settings"));
        assertThat(settingsValidation.exists(), equalTo(true));
    }

    private String getLauncherPackageName() {
        // Create launcher Intent
        final Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_MAIN);
        intent.addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_HOME);

        // Use PackageManager to get the launcher package name
        PackageManager pm = InstrumentationRegistry.getContext().getPackageManager();
        ResolveInfo resolveInfo = pm.resolveActivity(intent, PackageManager.MATCH_DEFAULT_ONLY);
        return resolveInfo.activityInfo.packageName;
    }
}