About Mobile Tests

Applies to TestComplete 15.47, last modified on January 20, 2023

In TestComplete, you can connect to mobile devices and create and run automated tests for applications running on these devices. It can be both real devices and emulators managed by an Appium server running on your local computer, on a remote computer in your company network or provided as a service as a third-party vendor. This way, you can do the following:

  • Create automated mobile tests easily by recording user actions with TestComplete.

  • Explore your tested application internal hierarchy by using the Object Browser or Object Spy.

  • Use various TestComplete features for your testing benefits:

  • Run tests on a wide range of mobile devices. You will not have to connect those devices to your TestComplete workstation directly.

Video Tutorial

 

Requirements

To create and run automated mobile tests with TestComplete, you need a mobile device managed by an Appium server. You also need to prepare your tested application and TestComplete for testing. For detailed information on requirements, see:

Testing Mobile Applications - Requirements

Prerequisites

Before you start creating tests for your mobile application, you may have to configure your testing environment to make sure that TestComplete can access the application. If you use BitBar, you have to connect your TestComplete project to your BitBar account and upload your tested application file to the BitBar repository. If you use a private Appium server, you may also need to place your tested application in a location available both for TestComplete and for your target mobile device. If you do not have Appium, you may consider configuring one. To learn more, see:

Testing Mobile Applications - Prerequisites

Set up Appium Server

Supported mobile devices

  • Android and iOS devices.

    Android OS versions prior to 5.0 are not supported.

  • Real devices and emulators.

How it works

  1. In TestComplete, connect to a hub that controls your mobile devices (for example, provided by BitBar or a private Appium server), open a testing session, and launch your tested mobile application. You can do it:

    See Connecting to Mobile Devices and Opening Testing Sessions.

  2. Your tested mobile application becomes available to TestComplete. You can:

  3. In TestComplete, record a test for your mobile application. In your tests, you can:

    • Simulate touches and long touches of application objects.

    • Simulate swipes.

    • Input text.

    • Verify objects and their properties.

  4. You run your test. The test engine connects to the testing session and simulates the recorded user actions over your tested application in it.

  5. After the test is over, you can view the test results in TestComplete.

You can find detailed instructions on creating tests in Creating and Running Mobile Tests.

Object hierarchy and object properties

You can view and explore your tested mobile application and its internal objects in the Object Browser (or Object Spy) in TestComplete:

Explore your tested mobile application in Object Browser

Click the image to enlarge it.

For TestComplete to access your mobile device, there must have a testing session opened on it.

The top-level object for mobile applications running in a mobile device cloud is Mobile. It contains methods and properties for accessing mobile devices to which your TestComplete is connected.

All devices to which TestComplete is connected (on which a testing session is opened) are listed as child Device items of the Mobile node. Properties of these items describe the device and the operating system installed on them. Use methods of these items to simulate user actions over your tested device (for example, touches or swipes).

Process objects correspond to tested applications running on your devices and are shown as child items of your Device nodes.

The hierarchy of objects below the Process node reflects the hierarchy of objects in the appropriate tested application. Names that TestComplete assigns to these objects in the hierarchy are based on the object type, class name, ID, text content (if any).

The objects also have a unique identifier you can use to get them in your tests. You can view the identifier in the Object Browser or Object Spy. It has the same value as the FullName property of the object. The identifier relies on various FindElement methods to get the object:

The unique identifier of an object in a tested mobile application

Click the image to enlarge it.

Note: When TestComplete connects to a device initially, it gets the snapshot of the object hierarchy of the tested application running on the device and will not update the hierarchy automatically. To make sure that you are exploring the actual hierarchy, update it manually in one of the following ways:

  • Command the Object Browser to update the object hierarchy. You can do it by clicking Refresh All on the Object Browser toolbar.

  • Explore your tested application in the Mobile Device window of TestComplete with the Object Spy.

  • In your test, call the Device.RefreshAppiumContent method.

Addressing objects in tested mobile applications

Using name mapping and aliases

By default, during test recording, TestComplete automatically adds objects with which you are interacting to the Name Mapping repository of your project. It assigns a custom name to them and specifies identification criteria that will be used to locate the object in an application. In mobile tests, a criterion can be an object identifier, a class name, or an XPath expression.

Custom names assigned to mapped objects are called aliases and are used to refer objects in tests:

Locating objects in mobile applications by using mapped names

Click the image to enlarge it.

Without name mapping

To simulate user actions over objects that are not added to the Name Mapping repository, you can locate the objects by using various FindElements methods:

You can also use various WaitElement methods to pause the test run until the tested object becomes available and various FindElements methods to get all the objects that match the search condition rather than a single object. To learn more, see Addressing Objects in Mobile Applications.

In keyword tests, operations that simulate user actions also use the FindElement methods to located the target tested object:

Locating objects in mobile applications without name mapping

Click the image to enlarge it.

Simulating user actions in tests

To simulate user actions over your tested application, you use methods that TestComplete provides for objects it recognizes in mobile applications:

The sample script below shows how to connect to a mobile device and simulate user actions over a tested application:

Example

Mobile Screen window

In TestComplete, you can use the Mobile Screen window to view and interact with your tested mobile device (be it an emulator or a real device) and record user actions over the tested application:

View your tested mobile application in the Mobile Screen window

Click the image to enlarge it.

For TestComplete to be able to access the mobile device and show it in the Mobile Screen window, a testing session must be opened on the device.

When you interact with your tested mobile device in this window, for example, touch UI elements, perform swipes, or enter text, TestComplete sends the actions to the tested device. The same way, any interactions with the actual device are tracked in this window. This way, you can use the Mobile Screen window to interact with your tested device without accessing it directly.

Supported capabilities

To open a testing session in a mobile device cloud, you use desired capabilities: a collection of key-value pairs that describe the mobile device on which you want to open the session, the application you want to test, and other parameters.

BitBar capabilities

Capability Description Sample value for iOS Sample value for Android
bitbar_apiKey The API key assigned to your BitBar account.

To get the BitBar API key

CAF22AFB
bitbar_device The name of the mobile device on which you want to run your tests.

You can view the list of devices available to your BitBar account on the Devices page of the BitBar website.

Apple iPhone 7 Plus 12.1 -US Samsung Galaxy A7 SM-A700F
bitbar_target The type of the automated test: Android or iOS. ios android
bitbar_findDevice A Boolean value that specifies whether TestComplete will search for a replacement device if the one specified by other capabilities is not available. You can set the search criteria that TestComplete will use on the Properties > Device Cloud > Mobile page of your project. true
bitbar_app The ID of the tested application to be installed on the target mobile device. To get the ID, upload the application file (.apk for Android, .ipa for iOS) to the BitBar storage.

Get the app ID

1234

Appium capabilities

The following capabilities are applicable to any server managed by Appium (both the BitBar and private ones):

Capability Description Sample value for iOS Sample value for Android
platformName The name of the mobile OS where you want to open a testing session. iOS android
platformVersion The version of the mobile OS where you want to open a testing session. 14.0 11
deviceName The mobile device or emulator on which you want to run your test. iPhone Simulator Galaxy Z41
udid The unique identifier of the mobile device. Compulsory for physical iOS devices. To learn how to get your iOS device UDID, see Get iOS Device UDIDs. Hxs7pLHkUZ2O3R74 80A7FO960a61Ye3h
automationName The test automation framework to use. XCUITest UIAutomator2
app The full file path or the URL address of your tested mobile application. For iOS devices, it could be a debug version of the application (.app) or a release version of the application (.ipa).

For Android devices, it is .apk files.

.app (for emulators)
.ipa (for physical devices)
.apk

More

Available capabilities are not limited to those described above. To learn about other capabilities you can use, please see:

How do I start?

Follow these tutorials to learn how to create a simple mobile test:

Testing Android Applications - Tutorial

Testing iOS Applications - Tutorial

Note: The tutorials use BitBar as the mobile device cloud provider and show how to create a free BitBar account.

Known issues and limitations

  • For BitBar users: By default, all mobile devices that BitBar provides are configured to close alerts, messages, and notifications automatically. You may want to cancel this behavior to handle the alerts, messages, and notifications in your tests.

    If you have TestComplete 15.10, it cancels this behavior automatically upon opening a testing session on a BitBar device.

    If you have an earlier version of TestComplete set the autoAcceptAlert or autoDismissAlerts capability or both to false when opening a testing session on your BitBar device. For example:

    Example

  • For BitBar users: For TestComplete to be able to start tested applications on iOS devices automatically, specify the application bundle identifier when opening a testing session on a BitBar device.

  • Recording and playing back gestures (multi-touch events) is not supported.

  • Identifying objects by their image on the screen (image-based tests) or by the text they render on the screen (OCR-based tests) is not supported.

  • TestComplete does not support the obsolete JSONWire protocol to communicate with Appium servers.

  • Simulating the TouchRelease action on Android devices without simulating the TouchPress action first is not supported.

  • On Android devices with display cutouts, the UIAutomator2 driver may get the bounds of UI elements in a tested application incorrectly. As a result, TestComplete will not be able to record and simulate user actions at the right position.

    To avoid this issue, you can disable display cutouts on Android devices where you run your tests:

    1. Connect to the device and go to Settings > Developer options.

    2. Select the Simulate a display with a cutout option and set it to None.

    3. Save the changes.

  • TestComplete may fail to simulate moving a fingertip on an iOS device by using the combination of the TouchPress, Move, and TouchRelease methods.

  • The Drag method is not supported on iOS devices.

  • When a text box in a mobile application gets focus, the device may show an onscreen keyboard. The keyboard may overlap tested controls on the device screen preventing TestComplete from accessing them, and your tests will fail.

    To avoid possible issues, we recommend that you handle the onscreen keyboard in your tests. For example, you can:

    • In your tests, use the Device.IsVirtualKeyboardShown and Device.HideVirtualKeyboard methods to check if the virtual keyboard is visible and to hide it if needed.

    • In your tests, after simulating text input, add commands that simulate pressing Enter or submitting the entered text in any other way. Typically, this will make the onscreen keyboard disappear.

    • In your tests, add commands to scroll to the needed tested object to make it visible on the screen before simulating user actions over the object. You can do it, for example, by simulating pressing Up or Down buttons several times.

  • Simulating user actions over the virtual keyboard can cause performance issues and increase the test run time significantly. We recommend that you not use it in your tests. To record text input, use your local computer keyboard.

  • When simulating entering text into a control on an iOS device by using the Keys method, TestComplete may change the state of the target control or clear some of the control’s existing text unexpectedly.

  • When simulating entering text into a control on an iOS device, TestComplete may fail to simulate pressing special keys, like SHIFT, CTRL, ALT, or Backspace.

  • On Android devices, the Device.Keys method only supports Latin characters.

    The Element.Keys method also supports only Latin characters by default. To enable the Element.Keys method to support other character sets, use the unicodeKeyboard and resetKeyboard capabilities when opening a testing session on your Android device.

  • Accessing the contents of the WebView control is not supported.

  • Test Visualizer never collects information on internal properties of tested objects whose images it captures.

  • When you select objects in a tested mobile application by using the Object Spy and the application state changes after the Object Spy updates the object tree, the Object Spy may highlight objects in the application incorrectly.

  • If the visible attribute of an object in a tested mobile application is false, the Object Spy will consider the object as not visible on the screen and will not highlight the object with the red frame, even if the object is actually present.

  • The Refresh method that updates the object tree of the current tested application has no effect on tested mobile applications. To update the object tree of a tested application running on a mobile device, use the RefreshAppiumContent method.

  • The Mobile.Device.ApplicationManager.CloseTestedApp method may also close the testing session opened for the tested application on the mobile device.

  • For the Mobile.Device.ApplicationManager object to be able to access and control the tested application running on an iOS device provided by the BitBar device cloud, specify the application’s bundle ID when connecting to the device. To do this, use the bundleId capability.

  • If the application is not installed on the device, the Mobile.Device.ApplicationManager.ProcessState property may report that the application is not running rather than reporting that it is not installed.

See Also

Testing Mobile Applications

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