What does the testOptions.animationsDisabled property in Android Gradle plugin do?

Question

I recently discovered the property testOptions.animationsDisabled in the Android Gradle plugin.

I was hoping it would be helpful to disable the animations on my devices when executing UI tests with Espresso, but it's not, i.e. I still have to disable the animations manually or using one of several options available. Otherwise some UI tests become flaky.

Since the description of this property is rather short, does anyone know how it's meant to be used?

My gradle file is as follows:

apply plugin: 'com.android.application'
android {
    testOptions {
        animationsDisabled = true
    }
}

Thanks.

Answer 1

Unfortunately, nothing.

I added a comment a while ago that it is not used in the 2.3.3 plugin.

I hoped something changed with the Android Studio 3.1 and androidGradle 3.1 plugin release but that isn't the case.

I think it is a bit misleading that this flag exists and isn't better documented

Edit:

I have been forwarded this blog post that explains how to set up a test rule that disables animations for you.

https://proandroiddev.com/one-rule-to-disable-them-all-d387da440318