What is Appium?

• Appium is a open-source tool used for automating mobile apps ,mobile web application, mobile hybrid applications.
• Its supports all three types of platform :android,ios and hybrid.
• Appium is "cross-platform": you can use same api to test against different platforms.
• Appium is a language independant : you can use any language to automate test suite (Java,Python,Javascript,Jquery).

Appium Architecture

Let us recall the architecture selenium webdriver first:

• selenium webdriver basically uses the binding language(Java/Jquery/Javascript/Python) to interact with the browser.
• so the components are binding language + selenium webdriver + browser

Now think of the components to automate mobile app:

• mobile app(.apk) + selenium webdriver + appium + emulator/simulator/avd/real device (to launch mobile app)
• Appium is basically a server ,written in node.js ,which implements selenium webdriver
• Basically Appium recieves the request from the client script,handle them as http request and gives approapiate response on the server logs.

Setting Up Appium On Window

• Now before setting all the components of Appium one question comes in our mind how do we find elements in a app

1)Appium Inspector : appium have thier own inspector.
2)UI Automater :other option is UI Automater,you can download the UI automator to find the element in app.UI Automater is the preferred one.

Please Note :In an app we have only two options to locate the element id and class.You cannot find elements by other means xpath,linktext and all.



Automating Android App- Components Needed

1.Download the Android SDK android sdk

i)extract it and click on android studio bundle .exe file









ii)setup up sdk path in Enviroment Variable. ANDROID_HOME=C:\Users\gurpreetsingh\AppData\Local\Android\sdk\
Also in path variable include : %ANDROID_HOME%\tools and %ANDROID_HOME%\platform-tools
iii)Now open command prompt and type :
android sdk
it will open sdk manager install all the api above 4.2 and also the system image.






iv)Setting up avd(android virtual device )
in the command prompt type : android avd




Note:this will allow you create virtual device to launch your app.

try starting the avd make sure it is successfully configured virtual device, now stop the server.
install apk in adb copy app in platform-tools and type the command
adb install appname.apk Make sure it is succesfully installed,now start your avd server and launch your app ,now you can stop avd as it is successfully configured

2.Download the Appium appium

click on Android Setting
choose the apk
Note :In the latest version of Appium package and Launch Activity are detected automatically by appium earlier we used to provide it.
click the no reset checkbox this ensures appium will not restart the your app.
Choose the AVD from the launch device ,we configured this avd in earlier steps.
Choose the Platofrm name Android.
Automation name -Appium
Platform name 5.1 lollipop or any other
Device name as Emulator
On Click on Starting the Appium Server.It should start the avd and launch your App.
Note :If it does not launch you avd,click on Appium Inspector and Click on Refresh Button and Monitor Appium Server Logs.