Introduction to UI Automation Framework

UI Automation : A
Primer
Cocoaheads, Ann Arbor
October, 2013

About Myself…

Principal Software Developer @ Barracuda Networks
Freelance App Developer & Consultant
www.priyaontech.com
www.lunariasoftware.com

TwiIer:@rajagp
www.priyaontech.com 2

Test Categories
•  Unit Testing
o  Testing from developer’s perspective.
o  Testing that a particular function is right
o  Rest of system mocked up
•  Functional Testing
o  Testing from user’s perspective.
o  Testing that system behaves right

Today we talk about Functional Testing


Functional Testing -‐‑
Manual
•  Pros
o  Non programmer can do it
o  No special hardware/software required
o  Some aspects have to be manually tested – eg. the actual
rendering, user experience
•  Cons
o  Time consuming (regression, large data sets and use cases)
o  Lack of Reproducibility/ traceability (“Not sure what I did
exactly to cause the app to crash..”)

Functional Testing -‐‑
Automated
•  Pros
o  Saves time , effort
•  Will offset the initial cost of writing the test scripts
o  Consistency / Repeatable / Traceable
o  Regression
o  Large numbers of test data sets
o  Continuous Integration
•  Cons
o  Need some programming skills

Options
Tool
Platform
Scripting Language
Technical Details
Calabash
iOS/Andoird
(Device &
Simulator)
BDD. Feature
descriptions wriIen in
Gherkin. Test steps in
Ruby.
Uses Cucumber for driving
tests. A HTTP bounjour server
runs in your app and accepts
commands from test driver
(HTTP/JSON). Open Source.
Uses Private APIs
Frank
iOS (Device &
Simulator)

BDD. Feature
descriptions wriIen in
Gherkin. Test steps in
Ruby.

Uses Cucumber for driving
tests. A HTTP Frank server
runs in your app and accepts
commands from test driver
over “Franky” protocol (HTTP/
JSON). Open Source
Uses Private APIs

KIF
iOS
( Simulator/
device)
Objective-‐‑C
Framework integrated into
app. No HTTP server or
external driver. Open Source.

Options
Tool
Platform
Scripting Language
Technical Details
Fone
Monkey/
Monkey
Talk
iOS/Andoird
(Device &
Simulator) &
Web Apps
JS, Obj-‐‑C, monkeyTalk
scripts
Record actions using
MonkeyTalk console, save/edit
script & playback. Open
Source . Premium Support will
cost $$$
We’ll discuss UIAutomations today

UI Automation
•  Automated functional test framework
from Apple
•  UI interactions with app driven using
test scripts
•  Test scripts written in Javascript
•  Test scripts executed using
“Automation” instrument
•  Actively developed & maintained
(well….maybe)

UI Automation
•  Good user interaction coverage
•  Can work with no/minimal app
changes (recommend UIAccessibility)
•  Works on simulators and devices
•  Only on apps that are signed with
development profile
•  Simplicity

UI Accessibility
•  Informal Protocol
•  Interface to assist people with disabilities
•  Uniquely identify every element in the view
hierarchy
•  Every UIKit element can be specified to be
accessible, using "label" attribute
•  Recommended to use w/ UI Automations
o  In order to interact with an element, you need to identify it
•  Identifying element by position makes script fragile

UI Accessibility Rules
•  Individual View
o  Enable Accessibility
o  Set Accessibility Label on the view
•  Container View
o  Disable Accessibility on container view
o  Enable Accessibility on every contained view
that you want accessible
o  Specify Labels for container and contained views

UI Element Hierarchy
Target
Application
Window
View
View
UIATarget.localTarget()
.frontMostApp()
.mainWindow()
[UIAElement].logElementTree()

Tuneup.js
•  A set of Javascript utilities to facilitate writing
of UIAutomation scripts
•  Lot of convenience Wrapper functions to
handle repetitive tasks(isDeviceiPad,
isDeviceiPhone ,assertLeftButtonNamed …)
•  Enforce a structure to your test scripts –
Invoke “test” function
•  Alex Vollmer, http://www.tuneupjs.org

Demo

Get it at : hIp://priyaontech.com/ndownloads

Thank you!

Further Reading : Test iOS Apps with UI Automation
Bug Hunting Made Easy
By Jonathan Penn

www.priyaontech.com
@rajagp

Introduction to UI Automation Framework

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