If you are new to Mobile automation testing and have only heard about the Appium but do not know anything about it. No worries!!
This blog will help you to understand what is Appium and how it is useful. Also, it will guide you until you run your first program. Cheers!!
What is Appium?
Appium is an Open source tool to automate Mobile Applications Appium can be used to automate Native, web, and Hybrid mobile applications. It supports Android, iOS, and Windows desktop platforms. We can write appium scripts in multiple programming languages ex- Java, python, C#, PHP, etc.
What are Native, Web, and Hybrid mobile applications?
Native: Native Mobile Applications are those applications that are native to mobile. For example, applications like – Calculator, Gallery, etc.
Web: Web mobile applications are which we open in the mobile Web browser. Example – Opening any website link in the mobile web browser.
Hybrid: Hybrid mobile applications are those applications that are a combination of both Native and Web mobile applications. Example – Facebook, Appboss. These applications are mostly Native but they open external links in a web form (basically known as in-App browser).
Install Appium:
There are two ways to install Appium.
1- Install Appium with Node.js
2- Install Appium with Appium Desktop client
We will see both the methods, let’s start with first-
First - Install Appium with Node.js
Step 1– Check if Node,js is installed in your system. To do so –
- Open Command line (cmd)
- Enter –node –version or node -v
npm –version or npm –v
If these are already Installed then – Great but If not then we have to first install them.
Step 2- Download Node.js installer.
https://nodejs.org/en/download/
Step 3- Run the installer and install Node.js & npm
When the installation of Node.js is done then again open the cmd & run the same commands.
node –version or node -v
npm –version or npm –v
You can also check the location of the node installed on your system with below command-
where node
where npm
Step 4- Install Appium with Node.js
Run this command in cmd- npm install -g appium
Appium installation will start and when it’s done, Run below command to check if appium installation is successful.
appium –version
Appium version will be displayed.
To check the location of Appium – where appium
Step 5- Start Appium-
Run command in cmd – appium
Step 6- Stop Appium
To stop Appium just press ctrl+c on your keyboard, and then enter Y in cmd.
This is how we install Appium by using node.js. Now let’s see how we can install using the Appium desktop client.
Second- Install Appium with Appium desktop client
Step 1- Download Appium Desktop Client
http://appium.io/
https://github.com/appium/appium-desktop/releases/
Step 2- Install it
Step 3- Run
**Note- At a time we can only run Appium in one place. We cannot run Appium with Node.js and Appium desktop client at the same time as both will run on the same port.
Second- Install Appium with Appium desktop client
https://github.com/appium/appium-doctor
Step 1- Install Appium Doctor
Run command in cmd – npm install appium-doctor -g
Step 2- To check the Usages of appium doctor
Run command – appium-doctor -h
This command will list down multiple commands to check different functionalities.
➜ appium-doctor -h
Usage: appium-doctor.js [options, defaults: –ios –android]
Options:
–ios Check iOS setup [boolean]
–android Check Android setup [boolean]
–dev Check dev setup [boolean]
–debug Show debug messages [boolean]
–yes Always respond yes [boolean]
–no Always respond no [boolean]
–demo Run appium-doctor demo (for dev). [boolean]
-h, –help Show help
Now we will learn to connect real Android devices on windows , So that we can start with our mobile automation.
PREREQUISITES
– Java installed on system
– JAVA_HOME is set in environment variables
To check if Java is installed in your system, run command in cmd- java -version
– An android mobile device
– Connecting cable
– at least 200 MB free space
Step 1- Download SDK Product Management Software
https://developer.android.com/studio
Step 2- Unzip folder & Extract platform-tools
Step 3- Set environment variables
ANDROID_HOME = location of the SDK folder
PATH: append the path of the platform-tools folder
Step 4- To check if platform tools are installed correctly. Run below command in cmd
ADB Devices
If it does not provide any error then you are good to go.
Step 5– Make device ready
- enable developer mode in your device
- Allow USB Debugging
Step 6- Connect the device to the computer system through USB cable
Step 7- Run below command again in cmd
ADB Devices
Check your device id displayed.
Now your mobile device is connected to windows and you are ready to start mobile automation.
As promised in starting this blog will guide you until you run your first program using Appium. So now we will see a Java program to open any Application present in the mobile connection for automation. Let’s say “Gallery”
Step 1- Open Eclipse or any other IDE for Java
Step 2- Create a Project
I have created the Maven Project but you can create any project. The reason I have used the maven project is that it is very easy to arrange and download dependencies. We do not have to download dependencies and manage them manually. Also, when we take the project to another place or system then we do not have to care about dependencies, maven will take care of all of them.
Step 3- Add dependencies
- Selenium dependencies
- TestNg dependencies
- Appium java client
https://mvnrepository.com/search?q=appium
Step 4- Connect your device to your system and run below command
ADB Devices
Your device id will list down.
Step 5- Start Appium server
You can do it from command line or Appium desktop client
Step 6- Now we will write our code to open Gallery application in the mobile connected
Public class FirstAppiumProject{
static RemoteWebDriver driver;
Public static void main(String[] args){
Try{
openGallery();
}catch(Exception exp){
System.out.println(exp.getCause());
System.out.println(exp.getMessage());
exp.printStackTrace();
}
}
Public static void open gallery throws Exception(){
DesiredCapabilities capability = new DesiredCapabilities();
capability.setCapability(“deviceName”, “Pixel”);
capability.setCapability(“udid”, “524895cf”);
capability.setCapability(“platformName”, “Android”);
capability.setCapability(“platformVersion”, “10”);
capability.setCapability(“appPackage”, “com.myos.gallery”); capability.setCapability(“appActivity”, “com.myos.gallery.gal”); driver = new RemoteWebDriver(new URL(“http://127.0.0.1:4723/wd/hub”), capability);
System.out.println(“gallery Application Started”);
Step 7– Run and Validate
**Note: Above mentioned capabilities are imported and you always need to provide them in your program to run the Appium code.
deviceName — will be connected mobile device name
Udid — this will be the id which you get by running command ADB devices
platform name — Android
platform version — Android version of the connected device
app package — will be the package name of the Application you want to automate.
app activity — will be the activity of the application you want to automate
**Note– You can find the app package and app activity by using any App like Apk info on your device.
Thanks for holding this long with the blog. I hope you find it useful.
Original Post:- How to Start with Appium
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