I already have a Windows PC that I program all my C# Selenium Webdriver suites in. From there, running tests will open up the appropriate browser and I can either debug or run the tests as required. Could someone please let me know a suitable native iPhone app equivalent of this development and debugging environment? As far as I could tell, iOS driver can be used from a programming side but does not have an attached simulator that can be used - it's purely an API. I checked out Appium website, but it looks like it can only run on Mac (correct me if I'm wrong) and I'm not sure it is designed for 'black box testing' or whether I have to load the full iPhone app project into it first and build up the test suites from there. Difficult to tell just from the website. So, any help would be appreciated - particularly if you have worked with iOS driver or Appium before.
1 Answers
So here's the bad news:
- You will need a machine with OSX to run the "iPhone Simulator". Here's the general consensus on running the emulator on a hackintosh
That's the bad part. Here's the good part:
From there, running tests will open up the appropriate browser and I can either debug or run the tests as required.
- Appium's Inspector will help be your debug tool, while the iOS Simulator is your "browser"
As far as I could tell, iOS driver can be used from a programming side but does not have an attached simulator that can be used - it's purely an API.
- You're 1/2 correct.
- There is no attached simulator - it's purely a REST server.
- This is why you can write your tests in any language.
- They have various client libraries which make it easier to work with. Here's the one for C#
I'm not sure it is designed for 'black box testing'
- One of Appium's philosophies is "You shouldn't have to modify your app to test it" so yes, you shouldn't need to know anything about the system's internals to test it.
or whether I have to load the full iPhone app project into it first and build up the test suites from there.
If you want to run it on the simulator (you do), you do need a developer version of the app (compiled full iPhone app project)
So either your CI system (Jenkins, etc) gives you the .ipa or .app file, or you can have a client developer make one for you, or you can check out the source code and build & run with XCode.
Here's the setup guide on how to run your app with Appium, which covers the above two points.
Difficult to tell just from the website.
- It's a bit of a learning curve to start -- and the documentation is a bit scattered around. I would suggest reading this first, and then starting out with running the inspector on a sample iOS project (like this Paint app) and then the app you're actually trying to automate.
