Introduction to Appium

Introduction to Appium

1) What is Appium?
2) Features of Appium
3) How Appium Works?
4) Prerequisite to use APPIUM

1) What is Appium? (http://appium.io/)

Appium is an open source, cross-platform test automation tool for mobile software applications.
Using Appium we can run automation tests on actual devices, emulators and simulators.

Other Tools in this category are:
TestComplete Mobile for Android and iOS devices.
Selendroid only for Android devices.
KeepItFunctional(KIF) only for iOS devices.
Ranorex Studio for Android and iOS devices.
Robotium only for Android devices.
Etc…

i) open source
Free to use, not only free to use, source code can be downloaded, updated and distributed.

ii) cross-platform
Appium is for automating native, mobile web, and hybrid applications on iOS mobile, Android mobile, and Windows desktop platforms.

iii) mobile software applications

a) Mobile Native Apps
Native apps are developed specifically for one platform. They can be installed through an application store.

Example: Whatsapp, Facebook.

b) Mobile Web Apps
Web apps are not real applications; they are actually websites that open in our smartphone with the help of a web browser.

Example: Websites

c) Mobile Hybrid Apps
Hybrid Apps are a way to expose content from existing websites in App format.

Examples: Instagram, Wikipedia.

iv) actual devices, emulators and simulators.

a) Actual device – Real device mobile testing requires the use of the actual smartphone.

emulators and simulators are based on the concept of virtual testing. Virtual testing involves testing the software that provides the same functionality as provided by the real phone.

b) Emulator – An emulator is a desktop application that mimics the hardware and OS of the applications that should be tested.

c) Simulator – A simulator does not mimic the hardware/OS, but rather it mimics the basic behavior of a device.


2) Features of Appium

i) Appium is an Open Source Software

ii) Appium is Cross Platform

(Appium is “cross-platform” automation tool so you can write software automation tests against iOS and Android (multiple platforms) using same API. “cross-platform” enables you large amount of code reuse between iOS and Android test suites.)

iii) Appium supports all types of Mobile Software Applications

(Appium can automate Mobile native, mobile web and mobile hybrid applications)

iv) Appium supports Virtual Testing

(Appium support software test automation on emulator or simulator and physical mobile devices too.)

v) Multiple Languages Support

(Appium supports all languages that have Selenium WebDriver client libraries like,

Java, Python, JavaScript with Node.js, PHP, Ruby and C# etc…)


3) How Appium Works?

i) Appium is an ‘HTTP Server’ written using a Node.js platform and drives iOS and an Android session using Selenium WebDriver JSON wire protocol.

( Appium drives the iOS, Android, and Windows apps through Selenium WebDriver. It even uses WebDriver JSON wire protocol to drive the iOS Android sessions.)

ii) When Appium is downloaded and installed, then a server is set up on our machine that exposes a REST API.

iii) It receives connection and command request from the client and executes that command on mobile devices (Android / iOS).


4) Prerequisite to use APPIUM

i) Download and install Java (JDK)

ii) Download and install Android SDK

iii) Install Eclipse IDE

iv) Install TestNg for Eclipse

v) Install Selenium WebDriver Server JAR

vi) Appium Client Library

vii) APK App Info

viii) Install Appium Desktop


appium tutorial
Introduction Mobile Testing using Appium
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