Automatic Testing for Cordova/Phonegap Webview on Android

Question

I'm currently looking for a solution to test Android Apps automatically, native Android apps as well as hybrid Cordova/Phonegap apps.

The UI Automator from Google looks pretty fine, but can not deal with WebViews, which makes it unusable for me. Then I found the promising automation framework Appium based on Selenium, which should also be able to deal with hybrid apps, but I couldn't get it to work with WebViews, it seems to not be implemented fully yet, as also several posts prove.

After trying Appium I found a hint for Selendroid, that also should work for hybrid apps, but it seems pretty much buggy and keeps crashing my whole computer all the time.

So, does anyone here know a working solution for testing Android Apps with WebViews? I'm working on Windows 7. Thanks a lot in advance for any help.

Answer 1

In first case we need to know what kind of tests you like to drive. I think you like to run functional tests on the UI? Thats what i can think about after reading your question.

So lets split this by the given environment:

native iOS

• unit tests -> do it in xCode. http://www.apple.com
• functionality tests -> http://appium.io/

native Android

• unit tests -> JUnit, http://developer.android.com/tools/testing/testing_android.html
• functionality tests -> http://selendroid.io/

native Web like phonegap/cordova Apps

• unit tests -> jsUnit, http://jsunit.berlios.de/
• QA Testing and Checkstyle -> jsHint/jsLint, http://www.jshint.com/ & http://www.jslint.com/
• functionality tests -> http://docs.seleniumhq.org/ & https://npmjs.org/package/ripple-
• functionality tests (E2E) -> https://angular.github.io/protractor/#/ or https://github.com/jasmine/jasmine
• Here is a article about JavaScript QA / QS

native X - The out of the Box solution for all Platforms

• Here we are. There is none atm. But .. footage is that one here:

Gappium based on appium uses json for writing your tests. As i get the thread right, it was testet with Web/iOS for this moment. Android/Win seems not be integrated for this moment:

https://github.com/appium/io.appium.gappium.sampleapp

Note for phonegap & apache cordova functional tests:

Its possible to use ripple and selenium for testing hybrid apps. Keep in mind that some native function/plugins (hehe native functions on hybrid apps ... =) cant be tested or need to be mocked on a unknown way. Thats the footage for this moment.

Maybe usefull for you Continous Integration Server:

https://github.com/linslin/PHPUnit-selenium-HTMLGallery

Answer 2

Generally, testing hybrid apps is quite a challenge with API-based approaches. It can be done, but typically you need to integrate the UI technologies (e.g. WebView, Native, OpenGL, ...) with several APIs or some kind of wrapper (like Selendroid).

Here at TestObject (I'm one of the co-founders) we've created an Image-based UI testing approach specifically for cases like hybrid apps, interaction between apps, and so forth. This black-box approach is solely based on capturing the screen - we don't care what happens underneath.

Feel free to give it a try (http://testobject.com/) with your hybrid Cordova/Phonegap app and let me know how it worked out in comparison to UI Automator, Selendroid, Appium. Let us know if you stumble over any issues.