Set up Appium for beginners (Android & iOS)

Appium is an open source test automation tool to automate native and hybrid mobile apps. For more details about the tool please go through http://appium.io/

Below are the steps for setting up Appium in your test machine (with Eclipse):

Step-1: Install Java
Ensure you have java installed in your machine. If not installed, please install it as per the below steps.

1. Download latest java from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html or from http://java.com/en/download/
2. Double click on the downloaded file and follow the instructions to finish the installation. Please note the installation directory.
3. Once java is installed, you need to set the path for java as follows
For path setting in Windows,

• Please refer the "Java PATH setting" section of link http://knowledgebase-wiki.appspot.com/docs/Installing_Java.html
For path setting in Mac, please follow the below instructions

• Look for ".bash_profile" in your home folder
• If hidden files are not shown by default, you won't see this file. So execute below 2 command to show hidden files in mac

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES
killall Finder

• Start up Terminal
• Type "cd ~/" to go to your home folder
• Type "touch .bash_profile" to create your new file if ".bash_profile" doesn't exist
• Edit ".bash_profile" with your favorite editor (or you can just type "open -e .bash_profile" to open it in TextEdit.
• Update the file with the installed java home location as below example format
set JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_65.jdk/Contents/Home
export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_65.jdk/Contents/Home
export PATH=$PATH:${JAVA_HOME}:${JAVA_HOME}/bin
To test java installation, open your command prompt(in windows) or terminal(in mac) and enter

java -version

• You will get the version of java you have installed as below example,

java version "1.8.0_71"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_71-b15)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.71-b15, mixed mode)

Step-2: Download ADT bundle for Eclipse(Only if you want to test android application, not required for iOS application testing)

1. You can download adt bundles (e.g. version 2014-07-02) from below sites:

windows 32: https://dl.google.com/android/adt/adt-bundle-windows-x86-20140702.zip
windows 64: https://dl.google.com/android/adt/adt-bundle-windows-x86_64-20140702.zip
Mac 64: https://dl.google.com/android/adt/adt-bundle-mac-x86_64-20140702.zip
Linux 86: https://dl.google.com/android/adt/adt-bundle-linux-x86-20140702.zip
Linux 64: https://dl.google.com/android/adt/adt-bundle-linux-x86_64-20140702.zip

Extract the downloaded zip file and extract them to a safe folder. Inside the folder you will find 2 folders. One is eclipse and another with SDK for android
Set the PATH for android SDK. 
• In Windows, create a system variable ANDROID_HOME and append the "tools" and "platform-tools" locations in PATH environment variable
ANDROID_HOME=D://android/adt-bundle-windows-x86_64-20140702/sdk
PATH=%ANDROID_HOME%//tools;%ANDROID_HOME%//platform-tools;

• In Mac, append the below in ".bash_profile" file
set ANDROID_HOME=/Applications/adt-bundle-mac-x86_64-20140702/sdk
export ANDROID_HOME=/Applications/adt-bundle-mac-x86_64-20140702/sdk
export PATH=$PATH:${JAVA_HOME}:${JAVA_HOME}/bin:${ANDROID_HOME}/tools:${ANDROID_HOME}/platform-tools
Then you need to test sdk installation in the system. To do this, navigate to "platform-tools" directory inside sdk from command line or terminal and type command
adb devices
• You should get the below message in the terminal or command prompt
* daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 *
* daemon started successfully *
List of devices attached 
• If you won't see "List of devices attached" message in the output, you might not set the sdk path properly. Please check the steps once again and correct the missing ones to get it properly.
If you want latest android versions, open SDK manager and update the required android versions.

Step-3: Install Appium

1. Open terminal and type below command

sudo chown -R `whoami` /usr/local

• Click the enter key and enter system password if it asks
• Note: Sometimes in Mac system, you may get command not found error. Then please ensure the below is added in your ".bash_profile". You can addend at the end of file.
export PATH=$PATH:/usr/sbin
export PATH=$PATH:/usr/bin
export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin
Next type the below command

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

• Then click enter and follow the instructions to continue (provide system password is prompts)
• Note: In mac machine, it may prompt for any dependant software (e.g. xcode) then please click on install, if you want to test an iOS application. If you want to test an android application you don't need to install it.

Next install node by below command

brew install node

• and click enter. It downloads some files and installs them
• To see node is installed successfully, please type below in command line

node -v

•  and click enter then you can see the version of the node installed

Install appium by executing below command

npm install -g appium

•  and click enter, it will take some time to download all the appium related installations. 

To test appium installation, use below command

appium

•  and click enter, it will show the version of appium running and will start the appium server from command line.

info: Welcome to Appium v1.4.16 (REV ae6877eff263066b26328d457bd285c0cc62430d)
info: Appium REST http interface listener started on 0.0.0.0:4723
info: Console LogLevel: debug

Now you can proceed with developing/executing android or iOS automated tests using appium.
Happy testing!!!

Hide Soft Keyboard in Android Emulator/Device

There are multiple strategies for hiding the keyboard:

Method -1
There is a direct method available in AndroidDriver (or if you are using appium for mobile test automation, this method is availale in AppiumDriver too)
For example,

AndroidDriver<WebElement>  driver = new AndroidDriver<WebElement>(
    new URL("http://127.0.0.1:4723/wd/hub"), capabilities);
driver.hideKeyboard();

Method-2
You can hide soft keyboard completely(or only for some test specific) by passing the following property to the desired capabilities as below:

DesiredCapabilities capabilities = new DesiredCapabilities();
capabilities.setCapability("unicodeKeyboard", "true");

Method-3
You can hide by clicking different android keys like "Done" or "Back". Here is an example of hiding soft keyboard using BACK key.

driver.pressKeyCode(AndroidKeyCode.BACK);

In some older versions of AndroidDriver you can find below method

((AndroidDriver) driver).sendKeyEvent(AndroidKeyCode.BACK);

Method-4
You can go back by using following code, which will hide your soft keyboard

driver.navigate().back();

This you need to call only after entering text into edit field. For some views or activities, it may go back to the previous activity.

Method-5
You may try the below if it works for you. In some cases this doesn't work well.

HashMap keycode = new HashMap();
keycode.put("keycode", 4);
((JavascriptExecutor)driver).executeScript("mobile: keyevent", keycode);

Method-6
If you have android application code base integrated with your android test base, you can use the below code which will perform based on your current activity.

public void hideSoftKeyboard(Activity activity) {
  InputMethodManager imm = (InputMethodManager)
  activity.getSystemService(Context.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
  imm.hideSoftInputFromWindow(view.getWindowToken(), 0);
}

Start and Stop Appium Server Programmatically

Pre-requisites:
I assume you have installed the followings in your machine already.
Appium is downloaded (latest from here) and setup properly as mentioned here.
Java Development Kit(JDK) is downloaded(refer here) and installed in your machine.

How to Start or Stop appium server programmatically?
Please refer the below class for detailed usage, Hope it is self explanatory.

Method-1:

package appium.base;

import java.io.File;

import io.appium.java_client.service.local.AppiumDriverLocalService;
import io.appium.java_client.service.local.AppiumServiceBuilder;

/**
 * This page models Appium server
 * 
 * @author A. K. Sahu
 *
 */
public class AppiumServer {

 String appiumInstallationDir = "C:/Program Files (x86)";// e.g. in Windows
 //String appiumInstallationDir = "/Applications";// e.g. for Mac
 AppiumDriverLocalService service = null;

 public AppiumServer() {
  File classPathRoot = new File(System.getProperty("user.dir"));
  String osName = System.getProperty("os.name");

  if (osName.contains("Windows")) {
   service = AppiumDriverLocalService.buildService(new AppiumServiceBuilder()
     .usingDriverExecutable(new File(appiumInstallationDir + File.separator + "Appium" + File.separator + "node.exe"))
     .withAppiumJS(new File(appiumInstallationDir + File.separator + "Appium" + File.separator
       + "node_modules" + File.separator + "appium" + File.separator + "bin" + File.separator + "appium.js"))
     .withLogFile(new File(new File(classPathRoot, File.separator + "log"), "androidLog.txt")));

  } else if (osName.contains("Mac")) {
   service = AppiumDriverLocalService.buildService(new AppiumServiceBuilder()
     .usingDriverExecutable(new File(appiumInstallationDir + "/Appium.app/Contents/Resources/node/bin/node"))
     .withAppiumJS(new File(
       appiumInstallationDir + "/Appium.app/Contents/Resources/node_modules/appium/bin/appium.js"))
     .withLogFile(new File(new File(classPathRoot, File.separator + "log"), "androidLog.txt")));

  } else {
   // you can add for other OS, just to track added a fail message
   Assert.fail("Starting appium is not supporting the current OS.");
  }
 }

 /**
  * Starts appium server
  */
 public void startAppiumServer() {
  service.start();
 }

 /**
  * Stops appium server
  */
 public void stopAppiumServer() {
  service.stop();
 }
}

Usage of this class:

AppiumServer service = new AppiumServer();

// Starts appium server
service.startAppiumServer();

// ... your tests are here. 

// Stops appium server
service.stopAppiumServer();

Note: You can call start appium server in the @BeforeSuite configuration method and stop appium server at @AfterSuite configuration methods.

With the above approach of starting appium server, you can get total android log in the provided log file i.e. "androidlog.txt" file inside "log" directory of your project root directory

Method-2
Here is an another way of starting and killing appium server programmatically using command line executions with java's ProcessBuilder class. Refer below class for more details.
Define the below properties and change as per your appium installation.

 String appiumInstallationDir = "C:/Program Files (x86)";
 String appiumNode = appiumInstallationDir + File.separator + "Appium" + File.separator + "node.exe";
 String appiumNodeModule = appiumInstallationDir + File.separator + "Appium" + File.separator + "node_modules"
   + File.separator + "appium" + File.separator + "bin" + File.separator + "Appium.js";
 String appiumServicePort = "4723";

Execute the start and stop commands like we do from command line but here with using java's ProcessBuilder class.

 /**
  * Starts appium server
  */
 public void startAppiumServer() {
  executeCommand("\"" + appiumNode + "\" \"" + appiumNodeModule 
                      + "\" " + "--no-reset --local-timezone");
 }

 /**
  * Stops appium server
  */
 public void stopAppiumServer() {
 executeCommand("cmd /c echo off & FOR /F \"usebackq tokens=5\" %a in" 
  + " (`netstat -nao ^| findstr /R /C:\""
  + appiumServicePort + "\"`) do (FOR /F \"usebackq\" %b in"
  + " (`TASKLIST /FI \"PID eq %a\" ^| findstr /I node.exe`) do taskkill /F /PID %a)");
}

You may need the below class for executing a command line command. This you can do using Runtime.getRuntime().exec(command) also, but I would suggest to use ProcssBuilder as this is recommended.

 /**
  * Executes any command for Windows using ProcessBuilder of Java You can
  * change the first input parameter of ProcessBuilder constructor if your OS
  * is not windows operating system
  * 
  * @param aCommand
  */
 public void executeCommand(String aCommand) {
  File currDir = new File(System.getProperty("user.dir"));
  String line;
  try {
   ProcessBuilder probuilder = new ProcessBuilder("CMD", "/C", aCommand);
   probuilder.directory(currDir);
   Process process = probuilder.start();

   BufferedReader inputStream 
        = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(process.getInputStream()));
   BufferedReader errorStream 
        = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(process.getErrorStream()));

   // reading output of the command
   int inputLine = 0;
   while ((line = inputStream.readLine()) != null) {
    if (inputLine == 0) {
     System.out.printf("Output of the running command is: \n");
    }
    System.out.println(line);
    inputLine++;
   }

   // reading errors from the command
   int errLine = 0;
   while ((line = errorStream.readLine()) != null) {
    if (errLine == 0) {
     System.out.println("Error of the command is: \n");
    }
    System.out.println(line);
    errLine++;
   }

  } catch (IOException e) {
   System.err.println("Exception occured: \n");
   System.err.println(e.getMessage());
  }
 }

With the above method, the server log will be printed in the console as I kept standard output and error statements. You can change to trace these log in a log file if you need it.

Hope it is useful !!

Dealing with input fields in Selenium WebDriver

I got few requests from people saying few of the input fields are not clearing the existing data though we do clear using clear() method in WebDriver and few of the inputs doesn't accept single quote('), double quote("), slash(\), double slash(\\) etc. 
Please have a look on below examples for resolving such issues.
Lets take an example input web element as below :

WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver();
WebElement element = driver.findElement(By.cssSelector("#addressInput"));

Clear Input Fields in Selenium WebDriver:
For clearing an input filed you can use either of the following ways:

Case: 1

element.clear();

Case: 2

element.click();
element.clear();

Case: 3

String oldValue = element.getAttribute("value");
if (oldValue.length() > 0) {
 element.clear();
}

Case: 4

element.click();
element.sendKeys(Keys.CONTROL + "a");
element.sendKeys(Keys.BACK_SPACE);

Case: 5

oldValue = element.getAttribute("value");
for (int i = 0; i < oldValue.length() * 2; i++) {
 element.click();
 element.sendKeys(Keys.DELETE);
 element.sendKeys(Keys.CONTROL + "a");
 element.sendKeys(Keys.BACK_SPACE);
 element.click();
 if (element.getAttribute("value").length() == 0) {
  break;
 }
}

Enter Text to Input Fields in Selenium WebDriver:
For entering various types of inputs to an input web element you can use the following approaches:

Case: 1 - Normal Text

element.sendKeys("Some Text");

Case: 2 - Single quote

element.sendKeys("'");// single quote

Sometimes if you try to enter single quote('), it may not enter if you keyboard setting in the system is changes. For example some smart systems enters 2 single quotes on pressing once or sometimes 2 single quotes shown only after pressing 2 times on the single quote key(i.e. on first time press it won't show a single quote). In such cases try using 2 single quotes as your input to input web elements

element.sendKeys("''");

Case: 3 - Double quote

element.sendKeys("\"");// double quote

// similar to above issue for single quote, same applies to double quotes
element.sendKeys("\"\"'"); 

Case: 4 - Single Slash

element.sendKeys("\\");// single slash(\)

Case: 5 - Double Slash

element.sendKeys("\\\\");// double slash(\\) 

Case: 6 - Special Characters

element.sendKeys("!@#$%^&*()_+}?");// special characters

Case: 7 - Scripts

element.sendKeys("<script>alert('Hello');</script>");// script

Hope this helps!

Drag and Drop tricks in Selenium

Many of the UI draggable elements can be easily draggable from one place to another place over the web page. 
In some cases though the web element is associated with draggable properties, they won't respond when we do drag action through our selenium code by using Actions class. Below are few of the scenario, which will help you to drag and drop your draggable web elements over the web page.

The draggable elements can be anything with draggable properties associated with. It could be a table header cell or can be draggable div or a frame or etc. Lets take an example of a source element(from which you will start the drag action) and a destination element(at which you will drop by releasing your mouse) as below:

WebDriver driver = new FirefoxDriver();

WebElement fromWebElement =
  driver.findElement(By.cssSelector(".ui-draggable div[title='DragMe']"));
WebElement toWebElement =
  driver.findElement(By.cssSelector(".ui-draggable div[title='DropMe']"));

(1) By using Actions class of Selenium webdriver

Case 1: 

Selenium web driver provides Actions class to do drag and drop actions in the web page.

Actions builder = new Actions(driver);
builder.dragAndDrop(fromWebElement, toWebElement);

This will work for most of the draggable web elements.

Case 2:

In case of some of the draggable web element the below works very well:

Actions builder = new Actions(driver);
Action dragAndDrop =
  builder.clickAndHold(fromWebElement).moveToElement(toWebElement)
    .release(toWebElement).build();
dragAndDrop.perform();

Make sure to call the perform() method at the end like above.

Case 3:

In few website the draggable elements doesn't work with either of the above cases. Then you can try the below:

Actions builder = new Actions(driver);
Action dragAndDrop =
  builder.clickAndHold(fromWebElement).moveToElement(toWebElement, 2, 2)
    .release(toWebElement).build();
dragAndDrop.perform();

You can adjust the xOffset and yOffset values(which is 2 in the above example) as per your requirements

Case 4:

This case is very interesting one which will work anyway for all the types of draggable UI elements in the webpage.

Actions builder = new Actions(driver);
builder.clickAndHold(fromWebElement).moveToElement(toWebElement).perform();
Thread.sleep(2000);// add 2 sec wait
builder.release(toWebElement).build().perform();

In the above code the 2 second wait during the drag and drop action is important. I would suggest use this way only if the above cases are not working for you.

(2) By using Robot class

Case 1:

If any of the above drag and drop actions using selenium doesn't work for you, do the drag and drop using Robot class as below:

Point coordinates1 = fromWebElement.getLocation();
Point coordinates2 = toWebElement.getLocation();

Robot robot = new Robot();

robot.mouseMove(coordinates1.getX(), coordinates1.getY());
robot.mousePress(InputEvent.BUTTON1_MASK);
robot.mouseMove(coordinates2.getX(), coordinates2.getY());
robot.mouseRelease(InputEvent.BUTTON1_MASK);
Thread.sleep(2000);// Give some wait if required(e.g. here 2 sec wait)

Hope it helps you! 

Dealing with <object> tags in selenium webdriver

Many web pages uses <object> tags for embedded object within an HTML document. This element is mainly used to embed SVG elements, multimedia, Java applets, Flash etc.
Many web pages also use the <object> tag to embed another webpage or frames into the HTML document.

Though <object> tags looks slimilar to <iframe>, it won't work if you do switch frame by webdriver (e.g. driver.switchTo().frame(objIDorIndex);)

Here are few scenarios that you can handle using selenium webdriver with javascript/jQuery.

Example - 1: 

Example - 2: 

(Case 1) In example-1, if you want to click on a "g" elements of SVG element

WebElement objectTag= findElement(By.xpath("//div[@id='imageholder']//object"));
((JavascriptExecutor) driver).executeScript("return (arguments[0].contentDocument.getElementsByTagName('g')[0]).click()", objectTag);

(Case 2) In example-2, if you want to get the title for assertion, then try as an example given below

List<WebElement> objects = findElements(By.xpath("//div[@class='contentViewer']//object"));
String objectId = objects.get(0).getAttribute("id");
WebDriver driver = getDriver();
JavascriptExecutor js = (JavascriptExecutor) driver;
String text = (String) js.executeScript("return (((document.getElementById('" + objectId + "')).contentDocument).getElementsByClassName('titleText')[0]).innerHTML");
getDriver().switchTo().defaultContent();

(Case 3) In example-2, if you want to get any specific attribute, then try something like below

List<WebElement> objects = findElements(By.xpath("//div[@class='contentViewer']//object"));
String objectId = objects.get(0).getAttribute("id");
WebElement objectTag = findElement(By.id(objectId));
String btnTitle = ((JavascriptExecutor) driver).executeScript("return arguments[0].contentDocument.getElementById('closeText').getAttribute('title')", objectTag).toString();
Assert.assertEquals(btnTitle, "Cancel to close");

(Case 4) In example-2, if you want to do any action inside the iFrame, you can use as below given example

WebElement btnDone = (WebElement) js.executeScript("return ((((document.getElementById('" + objectId
            + "')).contentDocument).getElementsByTagName('iFrame')[0]).getElementById('done'))");
btnDone.click();

Note: I have just gave few examples actions w.r.t my example html code snippet. By referring the above examples you do actions inside <object> tag as per your requirements

Scroll pages in Selenium Webdriver

Most of the cases Selenium automatically calls the javascript "scrollIntoView" function on any element that you try to interact with. If you know an element exists at the bottom of the page then doing anything with that element (including getting an attribute or hovering over it, etc) will cause the page to scroll.

If the above doesn't work, please do either of the followings:

Scroll to a WebElement:

WebElement element = driver.findElement(By.id("navPanel"));
JavascriptExecutor jsexecutor = (JavascriptExecutor) driver;
jsexecutor.executeScript("arguments[0].scrollIntoView();", element);

(Or)

WebElement element = driver.findElement(By.id("navPanel"));
Coordinates coordinate = ((Locatable) element).getCoordinates();
coordinate.onPage();
coordinate.inViewPort();

(Or)

Point point = element.getLocation();
((JavascriptExecutor) driver).executeScript("return window.title;");
Thread.sleep(6000);
((JavascriptExecutor) driver).executeScript("window.scrollBy(0," + (point.getY()) + ");");

Scroll up the web page:

JavascriptExecutor jsExecutor = (JavascriptExecutor) driver;
jsExecutor.executeScript("scroll(300, 0)"); 
// here x value(horizontal value)'300' can be changed as needed

Scroll down the web page:

JavascriptExecutor jsExecutor = (JavascriptExecutor) driver;
jsExecutor.executeScript("scroll(0, 300)"); 
// here y value(vertical value) '300' can be changed as needed

Scroll to end/bottom of page:

Actions actions = new Actions(driver);
actions.keyDown(Keys.CONTROL).sendKeys(Keys.END).perform();

(Or)

JavascriptExecutor jsExecutor = (JavascriptExecutor) driver;  
jsExecutor.executeScript("window.scrollTo(0,Math.max(document.documentElement.scrollHeight,document.body.scrollHeight,document.documentElement.clientHeight));");

(Or)

JavascriptExecutor jsExecutor = (JavascriptExecutor) driver;
for (int second = 0;; second++) {
  if(second >=60){
    break;
  }
  jsExecutor.executeScript("window.scrollBy(0,750)", ""); 
  Thread.sleep(3000);
}
//y value(vertical length) '750' can be changed as needed