Selenium WebDriver - Running Mobile Web Tests on Real Devices
The web is crowded with lots of applications and the number is increasing every day. When the issue of validation of these applications arises, testing them is the only feasible solution for it.
Testing applications isn’t a mundane task as many think
and it has a lot of power to bring more quality, reliability, and authenticity
to the application. A good test can pick out any glitches, shortcomings in the
frontend from a user’s perspective and it also helps to further add value to
the developmental process. Manual Testing
isn’t feasible to perform all these steps and hence Automated
Testing helps to check a lot of problems and solve major challenges.
While testing, the tests have to be performed and checked on
different device types, configurations, operating systems, orientations,
browsers, and device sizes. To avoid testing on all these different types of
devices before a release, an emulator is generally
used. Emulators are used to providing a real-time environment without
considering all the differences in the device but it is a time-consuming task
and have to be performed manually and that’s where automated testing helps to
simplify the tasks.
Selenium, as an open source testing platform,
provides free automated testing features that cater to a majority of selenium
testing services and it reduces the time one needs to spend on testing.
It can run multiple parallel tests from different devices from various parts of
the world efficiently without any deeper knowledge of coding and computation.
Therefore, it greatly contributes to increasing the efficiency of the testing
operations.
When considering running automated tests on mobile web
applications, Selenium WebDriver acts as a basis for the frameworks that are
built over it. There are two main frameworks based on Selenium that facilitates
running tests on mobile web applications: Selendroid and Appium. Both
Selendroid and Appium are capable of performing a smooth test run that can be
capably handled by those who have a bit of background in working Selenium
testing tools earlier.
Selendroid – For
Android Devices
Selendroid is an automated testing framework tool that can
interact with multiple devices simultaneously. It can be used to test native
and hybrid mobile applications as well as web-based mobile applications too.
Selendroid can be integrated along with Selenium Grid and use it to run
multiple parallel tests. This framework tool can be used to test on a real-time
device and also on emulators.
Before one starts working with Selendroid, one need to know
the basic of programming like Java
and have some testing experience
with various integrated tools. Also, it is important that one must know how to
use Selenium.
Under Selendroid’s architecture, the Selendroid server is in
two-way communication with the application that is being tested. The tests are
written in Selenium WebDriver client API. From the web driver client, a request
is sent by using JSON to the Selendroid driver, and it further sends a request
in the form of HTTP to the Selendroid’s server which is compatible with JSON
Wire Protocol.
A Tutorial on step by step Demonstration of Selendroid by eVideoTuition
Selendroid supports web driver in multiple languages such as
Java, C#, and Perl and it works on all versions of Android devices. One of the
important features of Selendroid is ‘hot-plugging’, meaning hardware devices
can be plugged or unplugged during tests without restarting or stopping the
testing all the while recognizing new devices automatically.
Appium – For Android
and iOS
Appium is one of the popular cross-platform mobile testing
framework tools for native, hybrid and mobile web applications. It can be used
in both Android and iOS devices. One can easily build a testing script and use
it across multiple test scenarios. Appium uses JSON Wire Protocol internally to
interact with iOS and Android apps using Selenium’s WebDriver.
According to Appium architecture, the WebDriver sends a
request from the test script to the Appium broker which then configures the
project through the server. Appium server starts the testing on the connected
devices as it receives the request from the server. Generally, Appium reads the
test code from the server in Java.
Mobile web testing through Appium can be configured through
programming languages like Java, Objective-C, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, Python,
and C #among many others.
Appium provides a clean API with a seamless, clutter-free
experience. Those who have previously worked on Selenium will not have any
trouble in testing through Appium.
An Introduction video on Appium by Mukesh Otwani
Testing web-based mobile applications have been simplified
using the basic framework of Selenium WebDriver. The performance of the
applications along with the user interface is also inclusive in the Selenium
automated testing and is further simplified due to its scalability and
compatibility with different devices and various programming languages for
creating test scripts. One can pre-build the test cases for a particular web
application and use the same case across different Selenium platforms
seamlessly and get benchmarked results from the tests.