Part 7: First Appium Test Script (Android)

Welcome to the exciting part — writing your first automation script using Appium on an Android device! We’ll go from setting up the test environment to running a simple test on a sample app.

Step 1: Understanding Desired Capabilities
Step 2: Installing and Launching APKs
Step 3: Locating Elements and Performing Actions
Step 4: Verifying Results
Complete Sample Test Script

Step 1: Understanding Desired Capabilities

Before running any test, you need to tell Appium what device and app you want to test and how you want to automate it. This is done via Desired Capabilities — a set of key-value pairs.

Here are some common Desired Capabilities for Android:

Feature

UiAutomator2

Selendroid

platformName

The platform you’re testing on

"Android"

platformVersion

Android OS version of your device or emulator

"12"

deviceName

Name or ID of the device/emulator

"Android Emulator"

automationName

Which automation engine to use (UiAutomator2 for Android)

"UiAutomator2"

appPackage

The package name of the app you want to test

"com.android.calculator2"

appActivity

The main activity that starts the app

"com.android.calculator2.Calculator"

These capabilities help Appium know exactly what to automate and where.

Step 2: Installing and Launching APKs

APK is the Android app package file.
If you want to test your own app, you’ll need the APK file.
You can install it manually on your device or ask Appium to install it automatically.

To let Appium install the APK, add this capability:

options.setApp( “path/to/your/app.apk”);

Note: If you provide the app capability, Appium will install the app before running tests. If you only provide appPackage and appActivity, it assumes the app is already installed on your device.

Step 3: Locating Elements and Performing Actions

Once your app is launched, your test script needs to locate UI elements (like buttons, text fields) and perform actions (click, type, scroll).

Here are common ways to locate elements:

By resource ID (recommended when available):

driver.findElementById(“com.android.calculator2:id/digit_2”).click();

By Accessibility ID (sometimes called content-desc in Android):

driver.findElementByAccessibilityId(“plus”).click();

By XPath (less preferred due to performance):

driver.findElementByXPath(“//android.widget.Button[@text=’=’]”).click();

Step 4: Verifying Results

Testing isn’t just about clicking buttons — you want to verify the app behaves correctly.
Example: After tapping buttons in the calculator, you want to check if the result is correct.

				
					String result = driver.findElementById("com.android.calculator2:id/result").getText();

if (result.equals("5")) {
    System.out.println("Test Passed!");
} else {
    System.out.println("Test Failed. Expected 5 but got " + result);
}

You can use assertions with testing frameworks like TestNG or JUnit for better reporting (we’ll cover that later).

Complete Sample Test Script

Here’s a full simple test using the Calculator app:

				
					 import io.appium.java_client.android.AndroidDriver;
import io.appium.java_client.android.options.UiAutomator2Options;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebElement;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.WebDriverWait;
import java.net.URI;
import java.time.Duration;

public class CalculatorTest {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        AndroidDriver driver = null;
        WebDriverWait wait;

        try {
            // Set up Appium capabilities
            UiAutomator2Options options = new UiAutomator2Options();
            options.setDeviceName("Pixel 6");  // Update with your device/emulator name
            options.setAppPackage("com.android.calculator2");
            options.setAppActivity("com.android.calculator2.Calculator");
            options.setPlatformName("Android");

            // Initialize the driver
            driver = new AndroidDriver(new URI("http://yourIpAddress").toURL(), options);
            driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(Duration.ofSeconds(10));
            wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, Duration.ofSeconds(10));

            // Perform 2 + 3 = 5
            driver.findElementById("com.android.calculator2:id/digit_2").click();
            driver.findElementByAccessibilityId("plus").click();
            driver.findElementById("com.android.calculator2:id/digit_3").click();
            driver.findElementByAccessibilityId("equals").click();

            String result = driver.findElementById("com.android.calculator2:id/result").getText();

            if (result.equals("5")) {
                System.out.println("Test Passed!");
            } else {
                System.out.println("Test Failed. Expected 5 but got " + result);
            }

        } catch (Exception e) {
            System.err.println("Test failed with exception:");
            e.printStackTrace();
        } finally {
            if (driver != null) {
                driver.quit();
            }
        }
    }
}