Working With Action Bars - Basic Concepts

Applies to TestComplete 14.40, last modified on April 22, 2021

General Notes

TestComplete can recognize action bar controls of the Android Open Applications. It allows you to simulate actions on the action bar using its methods and properties.

Specifics of Working With Action Bars

TestComplete supports two groups of action bar elements: menu items and navigation items. To work with each of these groups, you should use different sets of methods and properties. For example, the TouchItem action simulates a touch on a menu item, and the TouchNavItem action simulates a touch on an item of the navigation menu. The images below demonstrate how these menus can be shown on a device’s screen.

A possible location of action bar items with the landscape screen orientation.
A possible location of action bar items with the landscape screen orientation.
A possible location of action bar items with the portrait screen orientation.
A possible location of action bar items with the portrait screen orientation.

It does not matter whether the action bar is split, you can work with it using the methods and properties of the Android ActionBar object.

In order to work with other elements that the action bar contains (buttons, switches and so on), you need to find them in the Object Browser. To learn how to do this, see Addressing Objects in Android Open Applications.

Addressing Action Bar Items

The information below describes how to specify action bar items in your tests:

Using Item Indexes and Names

It is possible to specify an action bar item by its name or index. In most cases, you can specify item by their names, in the following way:

actionbarObj.TouchItem("Item1")    // Touch a menu item

actionbarObj.TouchNavItem("Tab1")  // Touch a navigation item

The sample script below simulates a touch on the "Item1" menu item and on the "Tab1" navigation menu item of an application’s action bar.

JavaScript, JScript
Python
VBScript
DelphiScript
C++Script, C#Script

JavaScript, JScript

function TouchItem()
{
  // Select an Android device
  Mobile.SetCurrent("MyDevice");

  // Obtain an application
  var app = Mobile.Device().Process("com.example.myapp");

  // Obtain an action bar
  var actionbarObj = app.RootLayout("").Layout("action_bar_container").ActionBar("action_bar");

  // Simulating touch on menu item
  actionbarObj.TouchItem("Item1");

  // Simulating touch on navigation item
  actionbarObj.TouchNavItem("Tab1");
}

Python

def TouchItem():
  # Select an Android device
  Mobile.SetCurrent("MyDevice")

  # Obtain an application
  app = Mobile.Device().Process("com.example.myapp")

  # Obtain an action bar
  actionbarObj = app.RootLayout("").Layout("action_bar_container").ActionBar("action_bar")

  # Simulating touch on menu item
  actionbarObj.TouchItem("Item1")

  # Simulating touch on navigation item
  actionbarObj.TouchNavItem("Tab1")

VBScript

Sub TouchItem
  Dim app, actionbarObj

  ' Select an Android device
  Mobile.SetCurrent("MyDevice")

  ' Obtain an application
  Set app = Mobile.Device.Process("com.example.myapp")

  ' Obtain an action bar
  Set actionbarObj = app.RootLayout("").Layout("action_bar_container").ActionBar("action_bar")

  ' Simulating touch on a menu item
  Call actionbarObj.TouchItem("Item1")

  ' Simulating touch on a navigation item
  Call actionbarObj.TouchNavItem("Tab1")
End Sub

DelphiScript

procedure TouchItem();
var
  app, actionbarObj: OleVariant;
begin
  
  // Select an Android device
  Mobile.SetCurrent('MyDevice');

  // Obtain an application
  app := Mobile.Device.Process('com.example.myapp');

  // Obtain an action bar
  actionbarObj := app.RootLayout('').Layout('action_bar_container').ActionBar('action_bar');

  // Simulating touch on a menu item
  actionbarObj.TouchItem('Item1');

  // Simulating touch on a navigation menu
  actionbarObj.TouchNavItem('Tab1');
end;

C++Script, C#Script

function TouchItem()
{
  // Select an Android device
  Mobile["SetCurrent"]("MyDevice");

  // Obtain an application
  var app = Mobile["Device"]["Process"]("com.example.myapp");

  // Obtain an action bar
  var actionbarObj = app["RootLayout"]("")["Layout"]("action_bar_container")["ActionBar"]("action_bar");

  // Simulating touch on a menu item
  actionbarObj["TouchItem"]("Item1");

  // Simulating touch on a navigation menu
  actionbarObj["TouchItem"]("Tab1");
}

If the action bar does not display the text of items, you can find it using the properties of the Android ActionBar. Use the wNavItemText property to obtain the name of a menu item and the wTextNavItem property to obtain the name of a navigation menu item.

If an action bar item does not have a name, you can specify it using its index (in other words, the position within the action bar). Indexes are zero-based: the first item of each group in the action bar has index 0, the second - 1, and so on. The total number of items of an action bar menu is specified by the wItemCount property. The last item will have index wItemCount - 1. To obtain the total number of navigation menu items, you can use the wNavItemCount property. In this case, the last item will have index wNavItemCount - 1. For instance, the instruction below simulates a touch on the fifth menu item and on the second navigation menu item:

actionbarObj.TouchItem(4)     // Touch a menu item

actionbarObj.TouchNavItem(1)  // Touch a navigation menu item

The sample script below simulates a touch on the first menu item and on the last navigation menu item of an application’s action bar and posts their names to the log.

JavaScript, JScript
Python
VBScript
DelphiScript
C++Script, C#Script

JavaScript, JScript

function TouchItem()
{
  // Select an Android device
  Mobile.SetCurrent("MyDevice");

  // Obtain an application
  var app = Mobile.Device().Process("com.example.myapp");

  // Obtain an action bar
  var actionbarObj = app.RootLayout("").Layout("action_bar_container").ActionBar("action_bar");

  // Simulating a touch on the first menu item
  actionbarObj.TouchItem(0);

  // Posting its name to the log
  Log.Message(actionbarObj.wItemText(0));

  // Simulating a touch on the last navigation menu item
  actionbarObj.TouchNavItem(actionbarObj.wNavItemCount - 1);

  // Posting its name to the log
  Log.Message(actionbarObj.wNavItemText(actionbarObj.wNavItemCount - 1));
}

Python

def TouchItem():
  # Select an Android device
  Mobile.SetCurrent("MyDevice")

  # Obtain an application
  app = Mobile.Device().Process("com.example.myapp")

  # Obtain an action bar
  actionbarObj = app.RootLayout("").Layout("action_bar_container").ActionBar("action_bar")

  # Simulating a touch on the first menu item
  actionbarObj.TouchItem(0)

  # Posting its name to the log
  Log.Message(actionbarObj.wItemText[0])

  # Simulating a touch on the last navigation menu item
  actionbarObj.TouchNavItem(actionbarObj.wNavItemCount - 1)

  # Posting its name to the log
  Log.Message(actionbarObj.wNavItemText[actionbarObj.wNavItemCount - 1])

VBScript

Sub TouchItem
  Dim app, actionbarObj

  ' Select an Android device
  Mobile.SetCurrent("MyDevice")

  ' Obtain an application
  Set app = Mobile.Device.Process("com.example.myapp")

  ' Obtain an action bar
  Set actionbarObj = app.RootLayout("").Layout("action_bar_container").ActionBar("action_bar")

  ' Simulating s touch on the first menu item
  Call actionbarObj.TouchItem(0)

  ' Posting its name to the log
  Call Log.Message(actionbarObj.wItemText(0))

  ' Simulating a touch on the last navigation menu item
  Call actionbarObj.TouchNavItem(actionbarObj.wNavItemCount - 1)

  ' Posting its name to the log
  Call Log.Message(actionbarObj.wNavItemText(actionbarObj.wNavItemCount - 1))
End Sub

DelphiScript

procedure TouchItem();
var
  app, actionbarObj: OleVariant;
begin
  
  // Select an Android device
  Mobile.SetCurrent('MyDevice');

  // Obtain an application
  app := Mobile.Device.Process('com.example.myapp');

  // Obtain an action bar
  actionbarObj := app.RootLayout('').Layout('action_bar_container').ActionBar('action_bar');

  // Simulating a touch on the first menu item
  actionbarObj.TouchItem(0);

  // Posting its name to the log
  Log.Message(actionbarObj.wItemText(0));

  // Simulating a touch on the last navigation menu item
  actionbarObj.TouchNavItem(actionbarObj.wNavItemCount - 1);

  // Posting its name to the log
  Log.Message(actionbarObj.wNavItemText(actionbarObj.wNavItemCount - 1));
end;

C++Script, C#Script

function TouchItem()
{
  // Select an Android device
  Mobile["SetCurrent"]("MyDevice");

  // Obtain an application
  var app = Mobile["Device"]["Process"]("com.example.myapp");

  // Obtain an action bar
  var actionbarObj = app["RootLayout"]("")["Layout"]("action_bar_container")["ActionBar"]("action_bar");

  // Simulating a touch on the first menu item
  actionbarObj["TouchItem"](0)

  // Posting its name to the log
  Log["Message"](actionbarObj["wItemText"](0));

  // Simulating a touch on the last navigation menu item
  actionbarObj["TouchItem"](actionbarObj.wNavItemCount - 1);

  // Posting its name to the log
  Log["Message"](actionbarObj["wNavItemText"](actionbarObj["wNavItemCount"] - 1));
}

Using Case-Sensitive and Case-Insensitive Item Captions

Depending on the Use case-sensitive parameters project option, TestComplete treats titles of action bar buttons as case-sensitive or case-insensitive. By default, this option is turned off so that you can specify the item title in any case (all upper case, all lower case, mixed case, and so on):

actionbarObj.TouchItem("Item1")

actionbarObj.TouchItem("ITEM1")

actionbarObj.TouchItem("item1")

actionbarObj.TouchItem("ItEm1")

If Use case-sensitive parameters is checked, you can only specify item titles using the correct case:

actionbarObj.TouchItem("Item1")  // Correct

actionbarObj.TouchItem("item1")  // Incorrect!!!

Using Wildcards and Regular Expressions in Items Captions

If titles of action bar items change according to the current context, it may be useful to specify items only by constant parts of their names. To specify arbitrary parts in item names, TestComplete lets you use wildcard characters (* and ?) or regular expressions. The wildcard asterisk (*) corresponds to a string of any length (including an empty string), the wildcard question mark corresponds to any single character (including none). To specify more complicated parts of a caption, use regular expressions.

For example, the tested application’s action bar contains the Undo menu item whose title depends on the undo buffer: if there is an action to undo, the item's title contains the Undo word and the action name (for example, Undo Typing or Undo Paste); if there are no actions to undo, the item's title is Can't Undo. In order to ensure stable recognition of the Undo menu item whatever name it has, you can replace the variable part of the name with the * wildcard:

actionbarObj.TouchItem("*Undo*")

In this example, we place the wildcard on both sides of the Undo word, since it can either precede or follow other text.

See Also

Working With Android Action Bar Controls
Android ActionBar Support

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