The demand for mobile device testing on various devices has grown exponentially in recent years due to the proliferation of smartphones. This has led to a diverse landscape of mobile devices, platforms, and operating systems.
In the past, mobile screens were relatively small, and the designs were less user-friendly. That has changed with the screens of today. Mobile-first applications have emerged as the prevailing trend, with larger and more intuitive displays on modern mobile devices.
Appium has emerged as one of the most widely used open-source tools for automating browser testing on desktop websites.
Why Appium?
Appium is a popular choice for mobile test automation due to its ability to test native and hybrid Windows, iOS, and Android applications. Appium provides built-in integration with Selendroid mode for testing older Android apps and uses the JSON Wire Protocol like Selendroid.
Key Features of Appium
- Appium uses a client-server architecture with an HTTP server written in Node.js, enabling communication between client libraries (Ruby, PHP, and C#) and mobile devices under test.
- It provides automated testing capabilities for iOS, Android, and Windows desktop apps and hybrid, native, and mobile web applications.
- As it works across iOS, Windows, and Android, Appium enables efficient cross-platform mobile testing.
- Appium is open-source and freely usable. The unified API allows test code to be reused across operating systems.
- Appium has an active user community, given its popularity.
- Small application changes don’t require reinstallation for testing. Unlike Selendroid or Robotium, Appium doesn’t access source code.
- Parallel test execution is possible on multiple devices.
Appium Components
- Appium Client: Test scripts written in languages like JavaScript and C# that communicates with the Appium server.
- Appium Server: Node.js server that receives JSON requests and executes them on mobile devices. Creates sessions to interact with machines.
- End Devices: physical or emulated mobile devices that run the automated tests.
Why Choose Appium With JavaScript for Mobile Testing
The benefits of using Appium JavaScript for mobile testing are:
Unified Technology Stack
Choosing Appium with JavaScript for mobile testing creates a unified technology stack. Testers can use JavaScript as a standard programming language for test automation across web, mobile, and other platforms. This consistency in using JavaScript across testing suites promotes code reuse.
In JavaScript, testers can modularize standard test utility functions, page object models, test data handlers, etc. Without duplication, these could be reused across web, API, and mobile testing scripts. Maintaining test suites also becomes simpler when updates must be rolled out across the board.
Fixing a mobile test helper function automatically propagates the change to the web test side through a shared codebase. Having a reliable, uniform programming language power the end-to-end test automation ensures improved maintainability.
Integration with Appium
JavaScript bindings integrate seamlessly with the Appium mobile testing framework. For testers already well-versed in Appium, this allows for retaining existing knowledge while using Appium as appropriate for enhanced cross-platform testing capabilities.
Testers can keep exploiting Appium’s strengths like reliable gesture handling, integration with simulators and emulators, etc., while benefiting from Appium’s maturity in locators, waits, test reporting, etc. This smooth interoperability ensures a graceful transition for teams looking to consolidate their web and mobile test automation initiatives.
Asynchronous Event Handling
JavaScript inherently promotes an asynchronous, event-driven coding style through its support for promises, async-await, etc. This aligns neatly with developing reliable automation for mobile applications. Mobile apps are sensitive to touch interactions and element load times. They can display unexpected delays in visual feedback. An asynchronous test code style that anticipates delayed responses allows graceful handling of such mobile quirks.
Using JavaScript asynchronous functions, they can quickly build waits, retries, and conditional logic, promoting flake-resistant test execution. This becomes essential for CI/CD pipelines running automation on real mobile devices. Overall, JavaScript helps tackle the unpredictability of real-world mobile usage efficiently.
Cross-Device Testing
Appium, combined with JavaScript, enables efficient cross-device testing for mobile applications. Many emulators and simulators can be configured to mimic real iOS and Android devices using Appium. These include spoofing various device sizes, screen resolutions, hardware profiles, etc. Appium makes switching between device profiles seamless, allowing the assessment of application consistency across a device farm through automated test suites.
Identifying responsiveness issues like cramped UIs, overflowing text, or clipped images for different phones and tablets is vital. JavaScript’s flexibility assists in quickly setting up and altering emulators for cross-device test runs. This ensures a reliable user experience regardless of the end mobile device’s form factor used to access the app.
To further expand cross-device test coverage, LambdaTest offers an AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform optimized for mobile app testing across simulators, emulators, and real devices.
Their real device cloud allows users to run automated and manual mobile app tests across a vast matrix of 3000+ Android and iOS devices. Using LambdaTest, testers can perform cross-browser and cross-device testing to ensure mobile application performance across diverse environments.
Open Source and Cost-Effective
Appium is an open-source library that offers its JavaScript bindings freely without needing proprietary licensing. This grants access to Appium’s mobile testing features without incurring hefty commercial fees.
Advantages of JavaScript for Mobile Testing
To use Appium for mobile test automation, JavaScript offers some exceptional advantages:
- Asynchronous scripting– JavaScript’s asynchronous nature by default makes it ideal for reliably developing fast test automation scripts. This matches the async character of mobile apps.
- Reusable code– JavaScript allows maximum modularity and reuse across web views and native app testing scenarios. Common APIs can be bundled into external utility files.
- Easy to learn– JavaScript syntax is easier and more intuitive than Java. For newer automation testers, this reduces the initial learning curve.
- Supports BDD frameworks– JavaScript works well with behavior-driven development (BDD) test frameworks like Cucumber, providing extended readability, parameters, and reporting.
The popularity of JavaScript across the front-end, back-end, and DevOps makes it a convenient choice for end-to-end mobile test automation.
Best Practices for Appium JavaScript for Mobile Testing
Here are some best practices to enhance the effectiveness of mobile testing:
Use Mobile Emulators or Simulators
Emulators (Android Studio) and Simulators (Xcode) emulate the software and hardware so you can automate and execute tests faster without relying on physical devices. They allow testing on multiple OS versions like iOS, Android, and Windows mobile without needing each physical device.
Use Page Object Model (POM)
Create page objects representing screens to encapsulate locators and actions in a single place.
Using the Page Object Model (POM) offers several benefits, including improved code reuse and easier maintenance. This is achieved by centralizing locators and methods that operate on the UI. Code duplication across tests is also reduced since page objects handle everything related to the UI. The POM also promotes modular test script authoring by simply allowing test steps to invoke methods exposed by page objects.
Verify Responsiveness with Resizing and Tools
Mobile responsiveness means apps adapt to varying screen sizes across devices. Chrome DevTools provide additional options to toggle device dimensions and analyze site behavior across form factors.
Prioritize testing phones and tablet variants, focusing on usability and display quality. Analyze for issues like:
- Content and buttons overflowing or appearing cropped.
- Images need to have a more adequate resolution or get distorted.
- Performance concerns like laggy scrolling.
Parallel Execution
Executing automation test suites sequentially requires considerable time to finish. Parallel execution allows running tests distributed across multiple devices and browser instances simultaneously.
Frameworks like WebdriverIO and TestNG have built-in support for parallel test runs. This significantly reduces the overall execution duration compared to serial test execution.
However, more than arbitrarily running all scripts concurrently may be needed. Intelligently allocate tests across threads based on resource usage, test categories, and device availability.
Conclusion
Appium with JavaScript provides a versatile framework for the automated testing of mobile apps across platforms like iOS, Android, and Windows. Open-source tools like Appium leverage the power and ubiquity of JavaScript for building robust and reusable test scripts.
For many testers, the familiarity of JavaScript as a language lowers the learning curve. And the active user communities around these tools make it easy to find solutions and support. While native app elements and device fragmentation pose challenges, the cross-browser and cross-device capabilities outweigh these issues for most testing needs.
Extending to mobile app testing is a natural progression for developers already using Appium for web testing. The reuse of existing scripts and integration with current frameworks is straightforward. Appium with JavaScript reduces the effort needed for comprehensive test automation despite the complexity of the mobile testing landscape. Its flexibility and comprehensive device coverage will continue to make it a go-to choice for many test scenarios.
